Presented to the
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LIBRARY
by the
ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE
LIBRARY
1980
Digitized by the Internet Archive
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http://www.archive.org/details/freedomofseasOOstrauoft
FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
A 100-lb. PHOSPHORUS BOMB STRIKING THE FIGHTING-TOP OF
U.S.S. ALABAMA
(Official photograph of U.S. Army Air Corps.
9 Kv
) ^ 1
FREEDOM OF TH
SEAS
2
By
LIEUT.-COMMANDER
THE HON. J. M. KENWORTHY, M.P.£«rJSk^
AUTHOR OF " WILL CIVILIZATION CRASH ? "
AND
GEORGE YOUNG
AUTHOR OF "DIPLOMACY OLD AND NEW," "CONSTANTINOPLE,"
" EGYPT,"' ETC.
WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS
HUTCHINSON & CO. (Publishers) LTD.
34-36 Paternoster Row, London, E.C. 4
Made and Printed in Great Britain at
Tht Mayflower Press, Plymouth. William Brendon & Son Ltd.
AUTHORS' PREFACE
THIS book has been written for a particular purpose. There
are some revolutions that reveal at once to every eye their
effects on the changes and chances of this mortal life.
There are others that, silently and all unseen, change
the foundations of life without challenging it to its face.
We have, since the war, been living through two revolutions —
possibly more — but two at least of the first importance. The one is
a revolution in social policy. Started by the seismic catastrophe
of the war and from the region where the eruption most completely
broke up the strata of society — Russia — this eruption set up a tidal
wave of revolution south, west, and east, that threatened to submerge
and subvert our political and social structures. At its approach
most of us banded together to build dykes to shut it out and to save
our property — some few of us set to work building dams to shut it in
and use its power. But all of us have been so preoccupied with this
tidal wave of revolution from the East that we have overlooked a
rising tide of revolution that has been flooding in on us steadily
and ever more strongly from the West.
The revolution in sea power, of which the sanction is the American
Navy, is really far more of a menace to the existing order in our
points of view and policies than is the revolution in social policy.
But it is even less a menace to our peace and prosperity and even
more a means to recover our position and progress provided we
realize how to accommodate our old ideals to it and how to adapt it
to our real interests. Yet we can do nothing until we recognize the
new factors it has introduced into our old problems and the new
forms in which it has recast them. The purpose of this book is to
present a picture of these new forms and factors so that this unseen
revolution may be realized.
Anyone can present a terrifying picture of a " tidal wave ,r
5
6 AUTHORS' PREFACE
revolution, and any danger there may have been in England and
America from any spectacular eruption of Russian revolution is long
past. But it is a far more difficult matter to present a picture of the
progress of a revolution by gradual and, for the most part, unper-
ceived, stages ; and to provide plans as to using it for the develop-
ment of peace. One of the authors remembers as a boy a day's
back-breaking building of dykes on the bank of a flooding river to
save a farm. Returning with the farmer and his hands in the
evening they found the flood had risen through the gravel and had
drowned most of the stock. A study of the subsoil and levels would
have saved the farmer his labour and his live stock. But all he had
seen was the obvious menace from the main stream that mattered
little. So readers will have in the following pages to face some study
of the subsoil of the subject, and some records of the levels of
forgotten floods.
In presenting their picture of this unseen revolution in sea power
the authors wish to acknowledge how much it owes any impression
it may make to certain of the illustrations for which they are
indebted to General Groves, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., Secretary-General
of the Air League of the British Empire, who first brought them to
public notice in England. It seems to them that a glance at these
latest types of floating fortress will convince the reader that the
battleship has reached that extreme of complexity and that extra-
vagance of cost that is the last phase of an engine of war. And that
another glance at the destruction, in a few minutes, of these mechani-
cal monsters that cost millions upon millions of pounds and that carry
thousands of the most skilled maritime workers, will convince the
reader as to the revolution in sea war that has accompanied the
re-alignment of sea power brought about by man's conquest of
the air.
This book has been written for no party purpose. The authors
are pacifists ; but no more so than most of their countrymen and
many professional sailors and soldiers. Their point of view looks at
the future in the light of the present rather than of the past ; but
is realist rather than radical. In their proposals they have followed
the policies of the present British and American Governments
wherever they seemed to them sound. Both their argument and their
appeal aims at a re-orientation and re-inspiration of the policy of the
AUTHORS' PREFACE 7
British people as to sea power that far transcend the restricted
region of party politics.
But they believe that just as the war between the British and
German peoples might have been avoided but for mistaken points of
view and policies in the ruling classes of both nations and principally
of the German rulers — so if war between British and Americans is
to be avoided, mistakes will have to be corrected on both sides and
principally in the points of view and policies of the British ruling
class. They know that in taking this view they are inviting the
indictment that they are the sort of critics who always condemn
their own country. But " My country right or wrong " has never
been an article of the British creed. And " My cabinet right or
wrong " is not even partisanship — still less patriotism. Rather we
prefer that larger patriotism of Lowell :
" Our true country is bounded on the north and the south, on the east
and the west, by Justice, and when she oversteps that invisible boundary
line by so much as a hair's breadth she ceases to be our Mother."
As the authors assume at times in the following pages an air of
authority in naval affairs and in Anglo-American relations and as
they hope to include among their readers Americans who may not
be aware of or able to check such claims as they may have to such
authority, it has seemed advisable to add a brief review of their
record in this respect.
The one is a professional sailor. He served for seventeen years in the
Royal Navy, including the war period. During the War he was for
a short but critical period in the Plans Division of the Admiralty War
Staff. He left for an appointment in the Mediterranean which enabled
him to see the latest developments of war on sea-borne commerce at
close quarters. He returned to the Grand Fleet in time to be present at
the final surrender of German sea power. He resigned from the Navy to
enter Parliament where he has for nine years represented the shipping,
fishing, and manufacturing port of Hull. Having entered political life
as a Liberal he joined the Labour Party in 1926, resigned his seat,
and was re-elected, having carried his constituency with him.
During his service at the Admiralty he assisted the co-operation
between the British and American fleets. Since the war he has
visited America, and maintains contact with the pacifist movements
and naval authorities there.
8 AUTHORS' PREFACE
The other comes of a family that has for many generations been
represented in the Navy and which was founded by an Admiral who
played a large part in the eighteenth-century wars that established
the Empire. He served for twenty years in H.M. Diplomatic Service,
being three years in Washington under Lord Pauncefote, when
British and Americans first adopted arbitration in their relations,
and four years under Lord Bryce, when by arbitration they " cleaned
their slate." During the war, being over-age, he served first in the
Admiralty Intelligence Department and then volunteered in the
ranks and was commissioned in the Royal Marines. Since the war
he has worked for the Labour Party on their Foreign Affairs Com-
mittee, in various crises abroad, and as candidate for his home
division. He was until lately a Professor of London University and
is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
It is in the character of admirers of the traditions of the British
Navy that the authors have written. They hope they may not live
to see their country sink to the position of a secondary sea power
subjected at sea by hopeless competition or desperate conflict to a
more powerful and peaceable State. They hope they may live to
see British Command of the Seas find a worthier end in peacefully
founding that Freedom of the Seas for which it so often fought.
CONTENTS
AUTHORS' PREFACE
CHAPTER I
FREEDOM OF THE SEAS BEFORE THE WAR
Sea Power v. Land Power .
Sea Power and Sea Police .
Sea Police and Sea Sovereignty
Command v. Freedom of the Seas
British Sea Power in Peace
Command of the Seas in War
International Law of the Sea .
Sea Law = Naval Policy
Freedom v. Command and United States v. United Kingdom
r Independence
ERRATUM
Page 87, line 34 : for £350 read £330
OF l8l2
rld Piracy
lMENT
American Civil War — The R6les Reversed
The Civil War and British Sea Power
Spanish War and American Sea Power
A Digression into " Agression " .
A First Anglo-American Alliance
An Anglo-American Armed Neutrality
Imperialism and Internationalism
The Hague Conference
Immunity of Private Property
Contraband and Blockade .
The Declaration of London
Law, War and Peace .
15
16
17
19
20
21
24
25
27
30
31
34
35
38
39
42
43
45
47
48
50
52
54
55
57
58
59
61
64
CHAPTER II
COMMAND OF THE SEAS IN THE WAR
The Naval War and International Law
The War of Reprisals
German Submarine Blockade — First Form
British Super-Blockade — First Forms
British Super-Blockade — Later Forms
67
68
69
72
73
75
10
CONTENTS
The New Naval Warfare causes American Mediation
German Submarine Blockade and America
British Wireless Blockade and America
America enters the War
The Success of the Submarine Blockade
The Submarine Surprise
The Submarine takes the Offensive .
The Submarine and Neutrals
The Submarine Blockade — Its Results
America as an Ally — Why it Began .
America as an Ally — What it Meant .
America as an Ally — How it Worked
America as an Ally — How it was Wasted
The New Naval Warfare and the Old
Commerce Destruction by German Cruisers
Can Cruisers Protect Commerce .
The Submarine Menace
The Aeroplane Menace
Air-Blockade and Commerce Destruction
Air and a Gas Blockade
An Anglo-American Air War
The Warship an Obsolete Weapon
Air-Blockade the Future Weapon
Naval War Revolutionized
British Policy must be revised .
Naval Blockades Obsolescent
Naval Blockades Blocked .
Naval Blockade must be abandoned .
CHAPTER III
FREEDOM OF THE SEAS AFTER THE WAR
Freedom of the Seas — German Version
Freedom of the Seas — Neutral Version
Freedom of the Seas — British Version
Freedom of the Seas — American Version
Freedom of the Sea is dropped .
President Wilson's Defeat .
Why America builds a Big Navy
American Disgust at Peace Treaties
American Policy of Pressure
Washington Conference Convened
Washington Conference Converted
Washington Conference — Political Consequences
Washington Conference — Naval Consequences
Washington Conference Counter-attacked
Disarmament must be Coercive
British seek Cruiser Command
Geneva Conference " Mal Vu "
Geneva Conference Mismanaged
Geneva Conference Deadlocks
Geneva Conference — British Case
Geneva Conference — American Counter-case
CONTENTS
ii
Geneva Conference — The Real Conflict
Geneva Conference — How it Collapsed
Geneva Conference — Why it Collapsed
Geneva Conference — Where it Collapsed
Proposal for prohibiting Submarines
Proposal for prohibiting Aeroplanes
Geneva Failure — British Attitude
Geneva Failure — American Action
American Big Navy Building
Naval Competition — A Check and a Chance
Anglo-American Alienation
Anglo-American Amicability — A Suggestion
British Attitude to America — A Criticism
Uncle Sam — The Bogey-Man
British Attitude — A Counsel
CHAPTER IV
COMMAND OF THE SEAS AND THE PEACE
Another Anglo-American War approaching
Anglo-American Political Antagonism
Anglo-American Business Rivalry
Pacifist Protest and War Propaganda
Anglo-American Association the only Security
Anglo-American Association Advisable for both
Americans can't do without British .
No Time to Lose ......
Should we wait for a Labour Government ?
What are the Prospects of Agreement ?
Sentimental Difficulties ....
Agreement must precede Disarmament
Neutralization of Narrow Seas .
Neutralization, Germany and Russia .
Neutralization and the British .
Neutralization and the American Senate .
Neutralization and the American People .
American " Outlawers " and British " Leaguers
Revision of Sea Law — Contraband
Prohibition of Trade in Munitions
Revision of Sea Law — Blockade .
American " Legalism " and " Anti-Leaguism "
War — " Aggression " and " Renunciation "
War must be stopped at each Stage .
There are Wars and Wars ....
How Wars have been stopped
How Wars should be stopped by Stages
An Anglo-American Treaty against War .
Various Checks on War compared
How can British and Americans come together
Gestures and Gifts .....
A " Freedom of the Seas " Gesture .
A " Monroe Doctrine " Gesture .
Danger of Delay .....
Parties
12 CONTENTS
TAOK
Anglo-American Arbitration 257
Franco-American Arbitration 258
Anglo-American Conciliation ...... 260
Conciliation and Arbitration Compared .... 261
Anglo-American Association and League Revision . . 263
A Regional Revision of the League 265
The Suggestions summarized ...... 269
A Last Appeal ......... 270
APPENDIX 271
I. Treaties 271
A. (1). Diplomatic History of the Rush-Bagot Agreement 271
(2). Text of Agreement . . . . . .272
B. League of Nations Covenant. (Extracts) . . 272
II. Resolutions 273
A. Resolution submitted to the Senate by Senator
Borah ......... 273
B. Resolution submitted to the Senate by Senator
Capper ......... 275
C. Resolution introduced by Congressman Burton . 276
D. Resolution adopted by the Labour Party Annual
Conference at Blackpool, October, 1927 . . 277
ILLUSTRATIONS
A ioo-lb. Phosphorus Bomb striking the Fighting-top of
U.S.S. ALABAMA Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
United States Frigate Constitution (Old Ironsides), First War-
ship of the American Navy 32
Latest Type of American Submarine — V. 2 .... 48
British Submarine M. i, mounting i 2-inch Gun .... 64
Sailing Ship torpedoed by Submarine 80
The End 96
Cargo Steamer torpedoed by German Submarine U. 35, April
1917 . . • 112
U.S.S. Illinois torpedoed and sinking 128
Seaplane launched by Catapult in U.S.S. Tennessee . . 144
Battleship Arkansas torpedoed by Aeroplane . . .160
Two Aeroplanes making a Smoke Cloud at an Altitude of
Several Thousand Feet 176
A Vertical Smoke Screen being laid by a Single Aeroplane . 192
Battleship Alabama struck by 300-LB. Aeroplane Bomb . . 208
U.S.S. Virginia after Fusillade of Bombs from Aeroplanes . 224
H.M.S. Hood, Largest Warship in the World, in Panama Canal 240
United States Battle Fleet in the Pacific .... 256
13
• V ,
FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
CHAPTER I
FREEDOM OF THE SEAS BEFORE THE WAR
FREEDOM of the Seas is the converse of Command of the
Seas — though it is also, as we shall show, its complement.
Command of the Seas has been the Palladium of the British
since the institution of the United Kingdom. Freedom of
the Seas has been the Palladium of the Americans since the inde-
pendence of the United States. In defence of these principles the
two peoples have gone to war with one another and may do so
again. " International Law " distinguishes between these doctrines
as being the rights of belligerents v. the rights of neutrals — a dis-
tinction that seems as fundamental a difference as that between
war and peace. Yet we shall not have much difficulty in shewing
that these two policies do not fundamentally conflict (Chap. I) — that
Americans and British fought side by side at sea for a new joint
policy in the Great War (Chap. II), that this new joint policy has
been taking shape during the decade of peace (Chap. Ill), and that
the time has come when it can be expressed in principle as
" International Law " and practically enforced (Chap. IV). For
the fact is — and our object in this book is to substitute an acceptance
of facts for an allegiance to fictions — that the relations of these
two peoples in respect to sea power and the realities of sea power
itself have been so materially modified that such a joint policy is
now not only possible for them but is imposed on them. Such a
policy could equally well be called an Anglo-American Freedom of
the Seas or an Anglo-American Command of the Seas. We shall —
15
16 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
to avoid antagonising anyone — call it an Anglo-American Armed
Neutrality, and the fundamental principle and purpose of such a
policy is pacification by sea power.
SEA POWER V. LAND POWER
" Sea power " or Command of the Seas has always been so
imperative in its action — so imperial in its authority — so imperious
in its attitude — that it has only been tolerated when asserted and
accepted as " sea police " or Freedom of the Seas. In the earliest
historical times when the world was still confined to the Narrow
Seas and the High Seas were only an encircling River of Ocean, sea
power could be exercised by Land Power in command of Narrow
Seas or navigable straits. The present conflict between lesser sea
powers fighting for Freedom of the Seas and major sea powers
enforcing their Command was then only beginning. The fight then
often was, as it sometimes is still, the effort of the Sea Power in
command of the open sea to prevent a Land Power or lesser Sea
Power from closing a narrow sea.
For example, in the Trojan War the real cause of war seems to
have been the pressure of Greek sea power to free the Straits from
the control of their Trojan kindred. In Helen, the daughter of the
Swan Goddess carried off from her home in the iEgean to the
Hellespont, we can see a poetic presentation of a challenge to Greek
sea power. In the League of the Suitors to resist any rape of the fair
Sovereign of the Seas from her lawful husband we have the first
example of an " armed neutrality " against the piratical raiding
of a lesser Sea Power challenging an established Command of the
Seas. We had, indeed, much the same issue fought in much the
same way at much the same place when the Allied Sea Power, again
based on Lemnos, besieged Turco-German Land Power at Gallipoli.
And if in modern war propaganda the ugliness of the Hun re-
placed the beauty of Helen as a cause of crusade, and official
histories replaced the Homeric Epic, these are only differences of
detail due to the advantages of civilization and the advance of
culture.
Though the World has grown, geographically at least, since then
and the High Seas are now more important as a field for sea power
BEFORE THE WAR 17
than the Narrow Seas, conflicts are still possible in the Narrow
Seas between Sea Power and Land Power, between Command
of the Seas and Freedom of the Seas. Such a conflict might
still arise, for example, at these same Straits over the Treaty of
Lausanne.
It very nearly did arise in 1922 when the British fleet was
occupying Constantinople in the interests of international trade
and the victorious Turkish forces were pushing in between and
behind the outposts of the British covering troops. It would have
then arisen but for a division in the Coalition Cabinet between, on
the one hand, Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Churchill pursuing the pro-
Greek policy of the Foreign Office, and the pro-Turk party of
Conservatives backed by the War Office. The decisive factor was
the failure of Mr. Churchill's cable to the Dominions in evoking any
support from them for saving that commercial centre at Con-
stantinople for which they had sacrificed so many colonial lives in
the Homeric battles of Gallipoli.
Such a conflict might also have arisen on the Great Lakes, in spite
of the Rush-Bagot agreement, when the Caroline was sent blazing
over Niagara Falls. It might have arisen again when we used the
Suez Canal to crush Egyptian Nationalism under Arabi — or when
Congress tried to exempt from tolls American vessels in the Panama
Canal on the ground that they were coasting trade, and were only
stopped by President Wilson enforcing the moral obligations of the
Hay-Paunceforte Treaty. Wherefore the possibility of such conflicts
in the Narrow Seas will have to be provided against in these pages.
SEA POWER AND SEA POLICE
But the main issue we have in view concerns not the Narrow
Seas but the High Seas. And the High Sea first appears in our
political history as the Mediterranean. Until the entry of America
into world economics a command of the Mediterranean carried
control of the world's commerce. And to such a sovereignty of the
High Seas the peoples of the world would only pay toll on terms— •
that is, in return for the Sea Power providing an adequate and
advantageous sea police. In other words, people will let power tax
them if it gives them peace — which is the social contract underlying
18 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
all sovereignty. It is only when such Sovereignty of the Seas is
exploited by one interest or institution, to its own advantage
without exercising any service in return, that the doctrine of
Freedom of the Seas finds a champion, and becomes a challenge to
Command of the Seas. Thus, the supremacy at sea of the Romans
was accepted because the service of Rome to commerce and civilisa-
tion in suppressing pirates was greater than its disservice in sup-
pressing the world commerce of its rival sea power, Carthage. " I
am the Lord of the World and the Law of the Seas," declared the
Emperor Antoninus Pius (a.d. 138-161), and the sea world assented ;
though Marcianus, Celsus and Ulpian had already formulated a
doctrine of Freedom of the Seas. Pompey was accepted as " the
Great " because of his service to civilization, when, armed with the
extraordinary powers of the Lex Gabinia and the whole naval
power of Rome, he cleared the Mediterranean of piracy. But when
in Rome's decline the Greek Emperor became principal shareholder
in a piratical Company, not all the Byzantine galleys manned by
Turco-poul marines and Gasmoul mariners, and armed with the
latest device in Greek flame-throwers, could keep the Command of
the Seas for the Empire. When the sea supremacy of the Empire
broke up, Sovereignty of the Seas was exercised, if at all, by
associations of maritime and mercantile interests agreeing and
applying conventional or customary codes, like the Laws of OleYon ;
and we then get the first appearance of an international sea-law
under conditions somewhat similar to those that face us to-day
with the approaching end of British sea supremacy. For what is
wanted to-day is just such an association of independent interests
in sea trade and traffic for the formation of an armed neutrality
to frame and enforce a corpus of sea law.
Side by side with these codes of sea law, that secured the police
of the High Seas, went claims to special Commands of the Narrow
Seas for their policing. The " Sanction " in the first case was the joint
naval force of an " armed neutrality '■■ concerned with Freedom of
the Seas — in the second case, that of the national fleet that was
claiming Command of the Sea in question. Both were acceptable
in an age when not only commerce but civilization itself was
imperilled by piracy. Mediaeval piracy is looked on by us in the
light of our own nationalized civilization as the last challenge of
BEFORE THE WAR 19
Eastern barbarism to European civilization. But it was much more
than that. Piracy was an international institution. The so-called
" Turkish Corsairs " and " Barbary rovers " who ravaged our
commerce and coasts were only too often European adventurers.
You can read the account by an eye-witness of the gallant defence
of the English trader Dolphin in 16 17 against five " Turkish pirates "
— but the names of the pirate leaders were Walsingham, Kelly, and
Sampson. One of the present writers, investigating some newly
discovered archives of the Levant Company, found that the whole
crew of the most successful Levantine pirate craft in this golden age
of Elizabeth were Scots. Such were the " Turks " or " Rovers "
who in 1625 captured 1000 British seamen, and in 1631 sacked
Baltimore and enslaved 231 men, women, and children.
It was to eradicate this cancer from civilization that Charles I
levied ship money and Oliver Cromwell built up a national sea
power and a naval sea police. But as late as 1656 the Dunkirkers
instructed released captives to tell the Protector that —
" while he fetches gold from the West Indies they will fetch his coals
from Newcastle,"
and piracy long survived in Southern seas. The walled hill-cities
of the Riviera, which British and American tourists find so pleasing
and French and Italian hotel-keepers so profitable, the Scandinavian
population of East Anglia to which Americans owe their Pilgrim
Fathers and the British owe their pioneers of rural reform, are both
the compensations of Providence for centuries of death and desola-
tion during which no vessel could sail the seas in safety and no
coast village could sleep safe without walls and watch-towers.
SEA POLICE AND SEA SOVEREIGNTY
This early sea power was thus very closely and clearly bound up
with sea police. For this reason the claims of Venice to sovereignty
over the Adriatic — of Genoa over the Ligurian Gulf — of Sweden
and Denmark over the Baltic — of Saxon and Norman Kings of
England over the Channel, were not contested. In 1320, Flemish
envoys prayed Edward II, as " head of the sea," to " cause right
to be done against the pirates." But, even so, direct toll-taking of
20 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
foreign shipping for police services was soon renounced by prudent
princes, and we find that in 1420 a recommendation by Parliament
that toll be taken from foreign shipping was rejected by the King.
Later with the decline of piracy these claims degenerated into
ceremonial, like the marriage of the Doges to the Adriatic or the
lowering of topsails and striking of colours to British warships in
the Channel. This latter, a vestigial survival of stoppage for search
and seizure, maintained for prestige, became a fruitful source of
trouble before it was dropped in the seventeenth century. Sea
power, thus degenerated into sea prestige, inflicted a personal
insult that in the end had to be wiped out in war when an English
Admiral fired on Philip of Spain for flying the Spanish flag in the
Channel on his way to marry the Queen of England. Again, that
adroit diplomatist, Charles II, persuaded the British that " the
honour of the flag " compelled them to go to war with the Dutch —
though these were their racial and religious allies in the fight against
French sea power — because the whole Dutch fleet had not lowered
its topsails and flags to an Admiralty yacht carrying an ambassadress.
Happily, international law now regulates ceremonial to the pre-
vention of such follies. Ambassadors are no longer a public danger
even while at sea.
COMMAND V. FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
As the civilized world distributed itself into National States,
distinct regionally, racially, and religiously, rivals in commerce and
culture, and resentful of the least restriction on their sovereign
status either on land or at sea, Command of the Seas by the dominant
naval power was contested as soon as it became offensively self-
interested and not obviously serviceable. And as these new nations
of the modern world expanded to the limits of their land frontiers
and launched out into overseas exploration and exploitation the
competition for commerce and colonies caused any claim to sea
power and sea police to be challenged, even when it was in the
interests of the peace or police of the seas. When the Papal
Authority, the successor of the the Roman Super-state, in the
interests of peace divided the discoveries in African waters by the
" Donation " of Calixtus and Sextus IV, the arrangement was
BEFORE THE WAR 21
apparently accepted, much as was the international partition of
Africa in the Berlin Act. But when Pope Alexander VI — a Spaniard
— by the " Bull of Demarcation " divided the lately traversed
Atlantic and the newly discovered America between Spain and
Portugal — the leading Catholic sea powers — as mandatories of the
ecclesiastical Super-state, thereby giving them a monopoly of these
new markets, the Protestant sea powers — England and Holland —
successfully asserted the Freedom of the Seas against this Papal
partition by an unrestricted sea warfare little short of piracy. And
it was in defence of these somewhat piratical procedures that
Grotius later wrote his famous treatise that formulated the doctrine
of Freedom of the Seas. His Mare Liber urn, by evoking the
Mare Clausum of Selden, first started the controversy between
Freedom of the Seas and Command of the Seas in the character of two
conflicting doctrines. And this duel of juristic dialecticians, by
drawing a distinction when there is no real difference, has, as is the
way of war, badly fogged and bogged the road to peace.
BRITISH SEA POWER IN PEACE
It will be our object here to clear away the fog of this controversy
and to get back to the facts. And these are that sea power will be
accepted when it is sea police and will make for peace, but will be
rejected when it is sea profiteering and will make for war. When,
for example, the British in the eighteenth century, in the interests
of their own commerce, tried simultaneously to capture the colonies
of rival peoples and to crush the revolt of their own in America,
their sea power was challenged by the First Armed Neutrality.
They lost command of the seas and therewith the rebellious colonies,
as they deserved. But when later, in the interests of Nationalism
against Napoleonism, they again made an extreme use of sea power
and were challenged, first by the second armed neutrality and later
by the Americans, they lost little or nothing thereby. And when, in
the long period of peace that followed, the British used their sea
power for sea police in the interests of civilization against the slave
trade and arms traffic, there was again a general acceptance of their
international mandate. The British Command of the Seas that
had resulted from their successful competition with the Portuguese,
22 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
Spanish, French, and Dutch was accepted down to the present day
because, though the piracy of the buccaneer, the corsair and, finally,
the slaver declined and disappeared, its function of sea police was
replaced by one of sea pilotage. Brigandage being suppressed, the
British sea police became peaceful but no less useful regulators of
traffic. The writ of British Sea Power ran wherever flat-bottomed
gunboats could float, not because the British war fleet could challenge
any two others, but because it was the only Authority for ruling
the waves.
The British regulations for the prevention of collisions at sea
(Merchant Shipping Acts 1 862-1 873) as revised and recommended
by the Washington Conference (1889) are now the Law of the High
Seas. So is the British Commercial Code of Signals (1857 revised
1900). The British Marine Survey, a branch of the Navy, provides
the whole materia technica of the science of navigation. The four
thousand Admiralty charts and seventy-six volumes of sailing
directions are used by all mercantile marines but are owed to the
British Navy. The meridian of Greenwich and the Nautical Almanac
have become international institutions ; and, if Gibraltar is no
longer wanted as a bulwark of civilization against the Barbary
pirates, Greenwich does the work of an international bureau for the
scientific safeguarding of navigation.
But nowadays it must be admitted that in time of peace there is
little use for national sea power as international sea police. As to
sea pilotage, such work as is now wanted could easily be done by an
international authority with no real naval force. Consequently,
however much a national navy like that of the British may claim
to be still of international service in providing Freedom of the Seas
in peace, such a claim is likely to be considered as mere camouflage
for preparing a Command of the Seas in war. If pressed it is likely
to provoke rather than prevent naval competition on the part of
Great Britain's commercial and colonial competitors. That is
evident from the attitude of Germans before the war — and of
Americans after it.
Thus, at the Washington Five-Power Naval Conference in 192 1
and the Geneva Three-Power Naval Conference in 1927, the British
protagonists of sea domination adopted a pose which, if taken
literally, means that only the British Empire has an interest in the
BEFORE THE WAR 23
Command of the Seas for its commerce and that no other nation's
maritime interests are of any account. In the third decade of the
twentieth century this posture is untenable. The answer is seen
in the French submarine building programme, the greatest embarked
upon by any nation, and in the Naval Appropriations presented to
the United States Congress for a shipbuilding programme greater
than any yet envisaged by a naval power. In short, to-day,
however loudly the British Lion may roar that Britannia rules the
waves —
" Yet have I heard upon a distant shore
Another Lion give a louder roar,
And the first one thought the last — a bore."
What was the effect, for example, on the minds of America, when a
Times leading article (30th Jan., 1928) in defence of the naval
policy of the Conservative Government, declared that
" The difference between the ' parity ■ that means an effective equality
in British and American naval strength and the ■ mathematical parity '
that would put an American Navy in a position to threaten the internal
communications of the British Empire has yet to be fully explained both
to the British and American peoples."
Whereas, when you come to think of it, these so-called " internal
communications of the Empire " are the international commerce
routes of the world ! Is it not absurd to assume that because these
two functions correspond, therefore these routes can be compared
with the overland railway lines of America and Europe as being the
exclusive domestic concern of the British Empire ? A country
overburdened with debt and borne down with taxation, with
vulnerable land frontiers in Asia, Africa, and America and even in
future in Europe, cannot bear also the task of policing and guarding
the sea routes of the world. Nor will other nations, almost as
vitally interested in these routes, endure much longer the sea supre-
macy of one Sovereign Power. Such peace service as Greenwich or
Gibraltar can still render is in no way commensurate with the price
to be paid by accepting the arbitrary power of commercial blockade
in War.
Freedom of the Seas in peace time is therefore not here in question,
except in so far as claims to Command of the Sea in the interests of
24 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
civilization and commerce conduce immediately to naval competition
and ultimately to naval conflict. Such claims would, in fact, not be
asserted were the Freedom of the Seas in war time adequately
assured. It is with the possibilities of such assurance that the
following pages are concerned. And if Freedom of the Seas in peace
time is not now challenged it is to be noticed that the Freedom of
the Air in peace time is still in cause. Certain nations are claiming
sole sovereignty of the air over their territories, just as at the
beginning of the flying era certain landlords claimed, incidentally
with strict legality, the right to prosecute, as trespassers, aeroplanes
flying over their estates. And though an examination of this subject
would take us too far off our course, yet it must be remembered
that this matter also requires international regulation. That Persia,
for example, for diplomatic reasons should refuse to ratify the
Convention she had signed which allows passage over Persia to
British commercial aeroplanes en route between England and
Australia, via Baghdad and India, is as ridiculous as if the Americans
used the Monroe doctrine to prevent foreign merchant vessels from
passing through the Panama Canal. The friendly relations between
two peoples and the future peace of the world should not be
imperilled by placing any such air power in the hands of a Govern-
ment for use in diplomatic deals. Air power in peace, like sea power,
must be under international authority.
COMMAND OF THE SEAS IN WAR
That the British derived from command of the seas in war not
only their Colonial Empire in the eighteenth century, but also their
commercial expansion in the nineteenth — and that, in this twentieth
century, while at war, they have been dependent on sea power for
their existence as food consumers and as factory producers is
accepted. And it is an American — Admiral Mahan — who has given
the clearest and most complete exposition of what sea power in
war has meant to the British. That such security by sea power
required in the past a supremacy in naval force over any probable
or even possible enemy, and involved a restriction and even a
repudiation of Freedom of the Seas in war is also agreed. But it
must also be admitted that the British owed the general acceptance
BEFORE THE WAR 25
by other peoples in the past of their Command of the Seas to the
fact that they therewith offered such peoples the greatest common
measure possible at the moment of Freedom of the Seas. And to
show how that measure can now be extended and better established
is one of the objects of this book.
On the other hand, that Americans in their belligerent genesis
derived their independence from the momentary Freedom of the
Seas obtained by the first Armed Neutrality and that, as a geo-
graphical neutral, they have always discerned their interest in
extending and establishing that Freedom is also to be accepted.
That they can now secure it if they like by themselves claiming
command of the seas is also agreed. But they also generously admit
that they inherited their early immunity from their colonial status
and that they owe the insularity which inspires their later relations
with Europe to British Command of the Seas.
It will, therefore, be argued in the following pages that the whole
position of both countries in respect of sea power in war has now
changed in almost every conceivable circumstance ; and that their
future interests lie not in efforts to claim or compete for a command
of the seas in war but in the opposite policy of combining in
Command of the Seas to secure a new Freedom of the Seas as
complete in war as in peace.
INTERNATIONAL LAW OF THE SEA
Freedom of the Seas in war has been considered in the past as the
converse of Command of the Seas in war. This has caused inter-
national law to become a regulation of naval warfare making to the
advantage of the weaker combatant both at sea and on shore — and
a restriction of naval warfare to the advantage of neutrals. Both
these objects of sea law can be justified on humanitarian grounds.
The regulation and restriction of the more extreme expressions of
war appeals to the moral instincts of mankind — and the objection,
that the more odious and onerous war becomes the more opposed
to it men will be, has been discredited by recent experience. Indeed,
the frightfulness of modern weapons breeds that fear of each other
which is to-day the most fruitful cause of war between arming
nations. There has consequently been a strong tendency to invest
26 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
such regulations and restrictions of sea warfare with the sanctity
of a " Law of Nations," and to invent for such international law
" sanctions " such as could, in fact, only be supplied by a sovereign
or sacrosanct Super-state ; for example, by a Holy See fulminating
papal interdicts or by a divine Caesar furrowing the sea with
triremes.
A student of textbooks on " international law " or of treatises on
international arbitration, or a jurist, who has lived in a realm of
common law and codes, might easily be tempted to assume that
there really was a valid corpus of international law — and that it was
only necessary now to supply it with codes and courts so as to
substitute a judicial arbitration for the arbitrament of war and the
security of a Super Prize Court for that of Sea Power. And the
experience of this last great war and of every previous great war in
sweeping away all such restrictions and regulations such a man of
law would explain away as extraordinary and exceptional. But
here we wish to be concerned with hard facts — not with legal
fictions however pious, or with legal formulae however positive. In
an enquiry into conditions that vitally affect not only our Empire
on the High Seas but the necessities of life in our native land, we
must look at things as they are. In a later chapter we shall enquire
whether and to what extent a future League of Nations and
International Tribunals, expressing a consensus gentium, and
exercising the combined force of neutrals, could be trusted with our
security and with control of the sea in war and in peace. In this
chapter will be shown that the history of British sea power suggests
that regulation and restriction of war at sea has not been secured
by the sanctity or sanctions of any codified, conventional, customary,
or case law, or even by a consensus gentium. But that it has
been conditioned purely by the policy of the principal sea powers.
That moral considerations only count in so far as they affect that
policy by a general disapproval of the inhumanities of belligerents
or an approval of their ideals. That the responsibilities of belliger-
ents and the rights of neutrals cannot be deferred in reality to a
corpus of jurisprudence — to a common law of nations — still less to
international codes — but that they vary with the vicissitudes of
the occasion and never represent more than the nett balance of
power and of public opinion.
BEFORE THE WAR 27
SEA LAW=NAVAL POLICY
For this purpose it will not be necessary to review the history of
the question more remotely than the beginnings of our colonial
and commercial supremacy in the eighteenth century — not that
evidence to the same effect cannot be exhibited from earlier
times. For whenever the pinch has come British sea power
has made short work of rights of neutrals or responsibilities of
belligerents.
The legally minded Mr. Asquith in announcing to the House of
Commons the " reprisals," that were, in effect, an illegal blockade,
said (1st March, 1915, Hansard, 5th Ser. LXX, 600) —
"we are not going to allow our efforts to be strangled in a network of
juridical niceties . . . under existing conditions there is no form of
economic pressure to which we do not consider ourselves entitled to
resort."
He thereby merely repeated what, under very similar conditions,
the diplomatically minded Queen Elizabeth had said to the Polish
Ambassador in 1597 :
" For your part you seem indeed to us to have read many books but
yet to have little understanding of politics, for when you so often make
mention of the Law of Nations you must know that in time of war
betwixt Kings it is lawful for the one party to intercept aids and succours
to the other and to care that no damage accrue to himself."
" Inter arma leges silent," and when it is a real war it at once
becomes all too clear that such regulations and restrictions are not
real laws. It is easy " to read many books " and to have all the
less " understanding of politics."
When we come to examine what was the condition of " inter-
national law " in respect of sea warfare, in order to expose the
conditions of its development for a century and to explain how it
must be dealt with to-day, it is very difficult to avoid the assumption
underlying all authorities on the subject that these compromises
between conflicting interests have a " legal " sanctity and an
28 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
" international " sanction. The authors, being all jurists and
nearly all pacifists, have naturally tended to assimilate these
international agreements to the " social contracts " of internal
sovereignty and to assume for them a basis of " jus " or at least of
" consensus " ; whereas the sanctities and sanctions of such con-
ventional and customary rules are entirely different from those of
either Common or Statute Law. Nevertheless, this assumption
has had great moral value as peace propaganda and has made a
profound impression on public opinion among the more legally
minded peoples. Of these, the Americans are the most extreme
example. This may be partly because in their own Federal Con-
stitution the Judicature, with its power of interpreting a written
Constitution, is a more essential element than elsewhere, partly
because litigation plays a more important part in business com-
petition and lawyers take a more important place in public life than
elsewhere. Wherefore in the American polity the Common Law
is only second to the Constitution, and the result has been a
" legalism " in the American aspect of, and attitude to, international
issues that is based on an assumption of an absolute and abstract
international Law. Whereas, the British, for reasons that cannot
here be developed, have remained in allegiance to the early and
more concrete conception of Law as emanating from the Crown or
from Custom. Instead of a Constitution the British believe in that
super-Royal Commission — Parliament. They see the future Super-
State not as an international Court but as an international Committee.
And this conflict in ideas between the " legalism " of Americans and
the " Leaguism " of the British will become of importance when
considering solutions in the final chapter. Here it is of interest in
explaining to some extent their respective reactions to the claims
of " international law " in the course of the century and a half of
their independent relations.
u International law " in respect of sea warfare was in the eighteenth
century much what it had been since the rise of independent
sovereign States. The early codes of mediaeval sea sovereignties
were represented by the rules of the Consolato del Mare, which
formulated the procedures of sea power in the Mediterranean in the
fourteenth century. These rules exempted from capture private
property at sea, whether ship or cargo, if neutrally owned. But
BEFORE THE WAR 29
this liberal provision did not represent a previous general custom
nor was it generally accepted thereafter, though it forms the basis
of many treaties in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the
ever more grasping and more general competition for the new
colonial and commercial prizes of sea power in the sixteenth century
belligerents came to claim as prize of war both neutral ships carrying
enemy goods and neutral goods carried on enemy ships (e.g. French
ordinances of 1543 and 1583). And it would be easy to show how
in each war the policy of each State corresponded to its sea power,
and how the general principles of these rules corresponded to the
balance of power between belligerents and neutrals. But it will be
enough to take one example. At the end of the seventeenth century
France was in pursuit of world supremacy by conquest. The enter-
prise of Colbert seemed on the point of winning for the French the
New World that the servility of Charles II seemed likely to lose for
the English. Therefore, France asserted the extreme belligerent
claim. The British, partly a colonial — that is, a belligerent power,
and partly a commercial — that is, a neutral power, and in either case
less self-supporting than France, adhered to the more liberal rule of
the " Consolato " which gave their commercial and carrying and
catering requirements a better chance. While the Dutch — a peace-
able people, a commercial power, and the world's carriers, secured
by treaty wherever possible a clause making enemy goods in neutral
and Dutch ships exempt, but neutral goods on enemy ships seizable.
Moreover, unregulated privateering and unrestricted blockades
made this confusion worse confounded.
Nevertheless, we find all the main conceptions of international
relations at sea in war time already clearly formulated as " inter-
national law." Conditional contraband, continuous voyage, non-
neutral service and other technicalities were already familiar to the
jurists who were busy formulating the theories that might be
supposed to underlie the actions of heavy-handed Admirals or the
assertions of hard-pressed Governments. And these theories of the
reciprocal responsibilities of belligerents and neutrals were coloured
by the controversy between those jurisconsults, who saw all belliger-
ent rights as derogations of a divine right of Freedom of the Seas,
which should exempt all private property at sea — and those others
who saw all neutral rights as a denial of a divine right of sea power
3o FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
and sea police for the protection of public and private property
alike.
It is interesting to note that already in 1758 Vattel finds it
necessary to modify Bynkershoek's definition of neutrality as com-
plete non-intervention, by allowing neutrals to favour one belligerent
against another who has in their opinion an unjust cause. And we
here have the germ-cell of an " Armed Neutrality," ora" League
of Peace " against " wars of aggression." The latest growth from
this germ is Senator Capper's resolution calling on Congress not to
support American Nationals trading with an " aggressor " nation in
a war in which the United States of America is neutral.
FREEDOM V. COMMAND AND UNITED STATES V. UNITED KINGDOM
The first relations of the United Kingdom with the United States
in this connection were conditioned not by the Consolato del Mare,
nor by the doctrines of Grotius, but by the circumstances of the
War of Independence. The mercantilist system, which made the
commerce with colonies in raw materials in return for manufactures
a monopoly of the Mother Country, was itself a denial of the Freedom
of the Seas, just as sovereignty over colonies was itself a derivative
of sea power.
The American colonists therefore first appear as belligerents
claiming and employing every belligerent procedure for freeing their
soil and seas from British sea power. And their best means for this
purpose was in allying themselves with the rival sea power of
France and in allowing themselves those belligerencies on the
" border-line " of legality that are the usual weapons of an inferior
sea power. Such a border-line belligerency in those days was
privateering ; and France, which, through Beaumarchais and a
sham corporation, " Hortalez et Cie," was supplying the colonists
with arms and munitions, in return exacted a permanent " com-
mercial " treaty allowing French warships and privateers permanent
use of American ports as a base in war. The only possible hostile
action at sea was commerce and coast raiding, like that of Paul
Jones ; and such privateering was only differentiated from piracy
by certain customary rules such as bringing prizes into port for
adjudication, not making war on open coast towns, etc. But these
BEFORE THE WAR 31
rules had to be disregarded by Paul Jones as completely as by any
German submarine or sea raider — though this American unre-
stricted warfare avoided the German inhumanities by its system
of ransoming captives. Indeed, Paul Jones was quite a polite
" pirate," and when he raided Lord Selkirk's country house he very
civilly restored the plate robbed by his crew. But no doubt the British
were as right under international law in classing his operations as
piracy as were the Spaniards in similarly condemning those of Drake.
Yet Paul Jones is quite as rightly a national American hero as is
his earlier piratical protagonist of the Freedom of the Seas a hero
of the British.
The United States owed the rapid acquisition and ready
acceptance of their independence to a strategic failure and a tactical
false move of British sea power. British belligerency had as usual
asserted the fullest preventives and prohibitions of trade with the
colonies. Under the " Rule of 1756," by which British sea power
successfully prohibited any new trade under war conditions that
had been prescribed by the Mercantilist System under peace con-
ditions— all open direct trade was seizable under u International
Law." But in this duel between the Mother Country and its
Colonists there was a majority of neutral Powers who were ready to
supply manufactures — to say nothing of munitions — to the new
State and who were resentful of the capture of neutral vessels by
British privateers. The Franco- American Treaty of 1778 had pro-
claimed a Freedom of the Seas policy to the effect that " Free ships
make Free Goods " ; and this policy inspired the " Armed Alliance "
of 1780, initiated by Russia, which forced the English to accept
for a time not only " Free ships — Free goods," but also a prohibition
of paper blockades and a restriction of privateering.
FIRST ARMED NEUTRALITY AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
At the time of the proclamation issued by Catherine II (2nd
February, 1780) the procedure of the United States of America as
to neutral rights was assimilated to that of the United Kingdom.
France and Spain joined the armed neutrality, and after some
hesitation (case of the Flora) Congress accepted the liberal rules of
the armed neutrality (5th October, 1780), but could not become a
32 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
party to the armed neutrality because it was a belligerent and
because the Empress refused to recognize the rebellious colonies.
After peace in 1783, Congress had lost interest in the armed neutrality
and was not anxious to be entangled in armed guarantees for the
enforcement of rules which were rejected by Great Britain. And
all the members of the armed neutrality abandoned its liberal rules
on their next belligerency.
The tactical failure of the British sea power was even more fatal
than this diplomatic defeat. It was occasioned by the Dutch having
developed their island, St. Eustacius, as an entrepot for an enor-
mously lucrative trade in manufactures and munitions with the
Colonies. These goods could safely cross the ocean in Dutch vessels
and thence be run by American coasters through the British blockade.
As the Dutch had long abandoned the Mercantilist System there
was no cause of complaint under International Law. But it was
obviously intolerable to the British that their trade rivals should
make 100 per cent, profits out of providing the means of rebellion.
On the pretext of a draft agreement for a Dutch loan to the Colonists
which was captured at sea, Rodney was sent to capture the port of
St. Eustacius and confiscate the property there in complete violation
of International Law. But while Rodney was plundering St.
Eustacius, de Grasse took command of the sea and brought about
the capitulation of Cornwallis and the collapse of the War of Inde-
pendence. The ■' Armed Alliance " and its Freedom of the Seas had
thus prolonged the War of Independence until a temporary French
superiority in sea power ended the British attempts to put back the
colonial clock.
As in this Anglo-American duel the balance of power was with an
Armed Neutrality, although the issue was of vital importance to
the interests of the belligerents and one of these was the dominant
sea power, the net result was a move towards Freedom of the Seas.
And the entry of a new neutral, the United States, into the balance
was in the end to prove far more important to that cause than this
ephemeral " First Armed Neutrality."
The next great conflict — that of the wars of the French Revolution
and of the Napoleonic regime — was under very different conditions
and had very different consequences. On the outbreak of war the
French envoy to the United States, Citizen Genet, proceeded to act
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BEFORE THE WAR 33
under the Treaty of 1778 by equipping French privateers in the
Southern States. Washington at once wisely decided that the
United States must preserve neutrality, and that the Treaty being
" defensive " and these operations " offensive," the United States
were not bound to enter the war as the ally of France. We have,
in fact, here the first example of the United States as a natural
neutral vainly trying to keep clear of a European war in which its
immediate interests were not involved and its sympathies were
opposed to its self-interest. In the early struggle between the
ancien regimes of Europe and the French Revolution, American
sympathies were naturally with France. This idealism was soon
modified by interest. The excesses of the Terror alarmed Anglo-
Saxon America, while war profiteering brought fabulous fortunes
to the farms and factories of the infant State. Wherefore the
British right of search and seizure was ruthlessly used for the
discouragement of America's neutral trade and the Jay Treaty
(1784), though it settled some outstanding disputes, in no way
relieved the situation at sea. The first direct blow at neutral trade
was that the British made grain contraband. There were good
precedents, but Jefferson had grounds for his protest. The next
blow was the prohibition of neutral transport of goods from the
French Colonies to France under the Rule of 1756. France had
abolished its mercantilist monopoly, so the prohibition was quite
arbitrary. But all the same, the American protest only secured
such a modification of the British Order in Council (6th November,
1793) as allowed Americans to trade with the French Colonies but
not between them and France. American shippers then began
transporting French colonial produce to France after transhipment
at an American port. This was allowed at first by the British Vice-
Admiralty Court (Sir W. Scott, The Polly, 1800), but later British
warships seized all American vessels they could convict of thus
evading the Rule of 1756 ; and this was confirmed by British prize
courts on the ground that logical facts were stronger than legal
fictions. (Sir W. Scott, The Immanuel, 1799.) The French action
was even more arbitrary. GenSt was using ports in the pro-French
Southern States as bases for privateering in spite of Washington's
repudiation of the Treaty of 1778, and a French decree (9th May,
1793) made British goods seizable on neutral ships though the
34 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
British were respecting the more liberal rule of the Consolato.
Monroe, a pro-French Jeffersonian, was sent to Paris; but his
persistent efforts to bring America into the war as an ally of France
on sentimental grounds only resulted in his recall by Washington,
whose attitude was very similar to that of his successor Wilson a
century later. A rupture of relations followed and American ships
were seized, but there was no formal declaration of war, and for
two years American warships fought with French " very informally "
but none the less heartily. Finally a settlement was reached between
President Adams and Napoleon — the American liability for the
breach of treaty obligations being traded against that of France for
breaches of international law.
WASHINGTON AND WILSON
It is interesting to compare the aims and achievements of Wash-
ington and Wilson in situations which, though over a century apart,
were sufficiently similar to allow of a comparison. Washington, the
soldier and owner of estates commanding and developing a nationalist
movement, had the more limited objective and the more immediate
success. As long as he was in command he kept America out of the
Napoleonic cataclysm by a strength of character greater than
Wilson's. He died "first in peace, first in war and first in the
hearts of his countrymen." Wilson had set a far higher aim for
himself — a far nobler ambition for his country. A student and a
statesman, he found himself giving a voice and a lead to a world-
wide movement to save civilization from war. He failed in war,
for he could not keep his country out of it, he failed in peace
because his country would not support him, and he failed to find a
place in the hearts of his countrymen because they saw only his
failures. But if Washington is suitably commemorated in the
National Capital of the United States of America — Wilson will some
day have for memorial the international capital of the United
States of the World. The tragic figure of the great Peace-President
will some day be the first in the hearts of his fellow-countrymen of
all nations.
BEFORE THE WAR 35
SECOND ARMED NEUTRALITY AND WAR OF l8l2
When Washington left the wheel the American Ship of State
no longer held so straight a course. It was not long before British
sea power had evoked a second Armed Neutrality (1800) initiated
by Russia and Scandinavia, that led to an interesting interlude in
the Maritime Convention (1801-1807). But Nelson crushed the
Scandinavians at Copenhagen (2nd April, 1801) and the revival of
war between England and Russia (1807) renewed the old conflict
between the British rules and those of the Armed Neutrality. But
the leader of the Armed Neutrality, Russia, after proclaiming (1807)
that it would defend the Armed Neutrality rules to the death,
immediately violated them by seizing British goods in neutral
ships (Ukase, 1st August, 1809). So ended the second Armed
Neutrality because these armed neutrals had no real political
solidarity among themselves nor any sufficient naval sanction
against others.
Meantime the war of the French revolution ended with the peace
of Amiens and broke out again (1803) as a war against Napoleonic
imperialism expressing itself in a war of ruthless reprisals at seal
Trafalgar (1805) had made the British fleet supreme, and so by
taking advantage of the doctrine of " Continuous Voyage " the
American trade with France and its colonies via American ports
was declared illegal (Sir W. Grant, The William, 1806) and the
American shippers, now deeply engaged in this lucrative trade, were
heavily hit. Then, as Napoleon controlled all European ports, a
general blockade of North Sea and Channel ports was declared
against him (6th April, 1806). Napoleon retaliated with the
" Berlin Decree " blockading English ports (21st November, 1806).
The British countered with another order (nth November, 1807)
blockading every European port under French control.
This repudiation of all rights of neutrals by the usual crescendo
of reprisals was, of course, destructive of American interests, as it
was intended to be. American trade in 1807 dropped by four-fifths ;
nor had America any effective retaliation. The United States were
still deeply divided between the agricultural south and the industrial
north. The interests of the northern merchants and manufacturers
36 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
had maintained neutrality under Washington and Adams. But
now the pro-French Jefferson was President and the southern
ruling class in control. So the Jeffersonian non-importation Act,
disastrous as it was for the north, was decided on by the south as a
reprisal that would penalize British exporters. In further reprisal
for British illegalities in impressing seamen from American ships
and for an attack on an American warship {Leopard v. Chesapeake)
Jefferson proclaimed an " embargo " (nth November, 1807) stop-
ping all trade with Europe. The object of this was to bring England
and France to terms — which it did not do. Its internal economic
effects were far-reaching but do not concern us.
As a substitute for war the embargo was a failure. Napoleon
extended his reprisals to American shipping in French ports, which
he captured under the Bayonne Decree (17th April, 1808) and
confiscated under the Rambouillet Decree (23rd March, 1810).
President Madison's diplomatic efforts to get a withdrawal of the
" Continental system " by the French and of the Orders in Council
by the British failed, and by 181 2 British warships and French
privateers were detaining and destroying American shipping without
regard to any rules at all. Madison then threatened war, and as
Napoleon announced he would withdraw his decrees (1810) though
he did not do so, and as the British dropped the Orders in Council,
but did not formally announce the fact in time, the United States
went to war with the United Kingdom (1812).
This war of 1812, with its illegalities such as the American
instructions to cruisers to destroy prizes and its odious reprisals
such as the burning of Newark by the Americans or the burning of
the White House by the British, should serve as a warning as to
how easily these two kindred peoples can be worked up into war
with one another over a rivalry in sea power remote from their real
relationship and vital interests. Indeed, there was really nothing
at all to fight about. For by 1812 the blockade and embargo had
converted Americans from a mercantile into a manufacturing
people, already almost independent of English and European
trades. Moreover, the British blockade had been already
abandoned as damaging to our interests before the war of 181 z
was declared.
The fact that the Americans in 1812 formally went to war with
BEFORE THE WAR 37
the British, instead of with the French who had damaged them
much more, is an excellent proof of the proposition that war is a
matter of psychology rather than of policy. The casus belli against
the British was their imprisonment of American seamen, which
though improper and even inhuman inflicted no national damage
on the American people. The real cause of war was the senile
arrogance of the English ruling class of that day — the county
families, and the childish aggressiveness of the American ruling
class — the Southern War Hawks.
French privateering on the other hand had done more than
anything else to kill American trade, and against it the British
fleet was the only protection at first. As soon as America had
equipped war vessels they fought the French privateers in bloody
battles for two years. But there was no declaration of war against
France because the American ruling class were in sympathy with
that nation.
And if we compare this with the American attitude in the Great
War we find that their action against Germany in 1917 rather than
against Great Britain was actuated by the same sort of sentiment
in the ruling class. The British blockade, though conducted with
careful consideration for American sensibilities, was doing American
business interests much more damage than the submarines. But
the American ruling class were on the whole pro-British in sentiment,
and the Germans alienated the sympathies of multitudes who might
have been their supporters on grounds of traditional policy. The
business interest of America was to remain neutral — its political
interest was to support Germany for Freedom of the Seas and
Balance of Sea Power. That is to say, the last war between British
and Americans was a war of sentiment — as the next will be should
the two peoples be mad enough to fight.
This summary review of the relations of the United Kingdom
and the United States in the world war of a century ago conduces
to conclusions that are confirmed by our relations in the world war
of this century. They are — firstly, that when there is an " all-in "
and " all-out " fight between Sea Powers for Command of the Sea —
the extent of respect paid to neutral rights at sea depends not on rules
of " international law," but on the risk of neutral intervention.
And secondly, that the United States as a neutral sea power will
38 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
be drawn into armed intervention, not against that sea power
which most injures its business interests, but against that sea power
which most infringes its moral instincts. The conclusion is that
it is a real question of national honour and vital interest both for
Americans and British to make and maintain a workable system
and a working sanction of sea law.
Unfortunately there was a complete failure of the British and
Americans to get together for the reconstruction of sea law out of
the ruins of its structure left by the Napoleonic sea warfare of
reprisals. This was due to the raw left in the relationship between
the two peoples by the War of Independence and the War of 1812.
The Anglo-American peace (Treaty of Ghent, 1814) made no attempt
to restore or revise the regime of sea law. The European Peace
(the Treaty of Vienna) was, of course, not, in the circumstances,
concerned with it. The British maintained all their belligerent
claims which had been the casus belli with Americans — conscription
of seamen, commercial blockade, Rule of 1756, and continuous
voyage, etc.
NEW WORLD SEA POWER AND OLD WORLD PIRACY
But all the same, a new factor had appeared in the balance of
sea power that at once produced two practical new departures of
the first interest and importance — which are generally overlooked
and always under-estimated by jurists and historians. The new
factor was an efficient American fleet. The first new departure was
the use of that fleet for eliminating from the European High Seas
the last mediaeval menace to Freedom of the Seas in time of peace.
It is one of the most serious and most significant reproaches to the
national organization of civilization that the separatism and self-
seeking of Sovereign States had allowed the Barbary coast to remain,
right into the nineteenth century, a citadel of that systematized
piracy that had devastated the coasts of civilized Europe and
destroyed its commerce since before the rise of modern civilization.
It is almost inconceivable to-day that powerful sea-peoples like the
British and French should have gone on suffering their ships to be
seized and their subjects enslaved under the very guns of Gibraltar
and Toulon. Worse still— that they actually paid tribute— or
BEFORE THE WAR 39
rather blackmail — to these sea-pirates and slave-traders, instead of
exercising that sea police against them which was the excuse for
their sea power.
A departure was made by the new American Navy that has not
been sufficiently recognized by Europe. The United States not only
refused to further subsidize these pests but resolved to suppress
them. An American Squadron challenged and chased back into
the Middle Ages the evil spell these pirate strongholds had imposed
on the far more powerful and more responsible fleets of Europe.
One of the most valued possessions of one of the authors of these
pages are the decanters that Admiral Preble took with him on his
Tripoli expedition in the famous frigate Constitution — " Old Iron-
sides." He drinks from them nightly to the American Navy
and Freedom of the Seas, and considers them a considerable
asset in compensating the balance of transatlantic trade in
historic relics that is now so heavily in favour of America.
He hopes it is some consolation to Americans for their loss that
their practical use in their own country is now so much less than
in his.
FIRST ANGLO-AMERICAN NAVAL DISARMAMENT
And the second new departure caused by the creation of an
American fleet is of even greater service to civilization. For it was
not, like the former, putting the coping stone to the Freedom of the
Seas in peace, but a laying of the corner stone of the Freedom of the
Seas in war. The American Navy on the High Seas a century ago
could do no more than give a dashing lead to Europe in a new
departure long overdue. But the American Navy in the Great Lakes
had a century ago built and fought itself a place on that basis of
parity with the leading sea power, Great Britain, that it is now
reaching to-day on the High Seas. And what was the result ? —
that, after the few years necessary to allow war passions to die
down, an arrangement was come to between these two Sea
Powers as to " neutralizing " the Great Lakes, which might well
be extended to-day to cover those Narrow Seas of Europe in
which the British and American Navies are — or soon will be — on a
parity.
4o FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
The so-called Rush-Bagot agreement, to the effect that neither
Power will keep a naval force on the Great Lakes other than a
minimum " parity " in police-craft, has every characteristic of a
Common Law of Nations — as distinct from those Napoleonic codes
of jurists so alien to the Anglo-Saxon temperament and tradition,
and so anomalous in their practical results. It is no carefully worded
and cautiously guarded Treaty — fortified by solemn ratifica-
tions and falsified by sinister reservations concealing the cunning
designs and concocted deals of " experts." It is not even a formal
international Convention. But just " a gentleman's agreement "
between a Mr. Rush and a Mr. Bagot, not otherwise distinguished,
beginning with no invocations of divine authority and ending
without any provision for appeals to arbitration or other precautions.
It was, like the Washington Disarmament Agreement over a century
later, a disarmament by " mathematical parity " in gun calibres, and
tonnage capacities. But, unlike the Washington Agreement, there
was behind it a complete acceptance of the principle ; so that, although
the limitations of calibre and capacity were soon obsolete and no
longer observed, and although the whole strategic situation of the
Great Lakes was changed by their being opened to the ocean, yet
the principle was not only respected but stood the strain of war on
two occasions. (See Appendix.) Moreover this anomalous agreement,
because it had become the common law of the peoples, has outlasted
all the contemporary conventional international law. The Declara-
tion of Paris, for example, was, as we shall see, never generally
obligatory, and is now obsolete. The Declaration of London was
superseded within a decade of its general signature . But the informal
Rush-Bagot agreement has banished naval warfare from a thousand
mile water frontier. And this open frontier has for a century been,
and is to-day, the only real safe sea frontier, because it is the only
one protected by an international Freedom of the Seas and not by
a national Command of the Seas.
Such longevity in a contract of a class in which the infant mor-
tality of Contracts runs very high — argues a sound constitution. And
the principle of the neutralization of Narrow Seas introduced into
international law by this agreement is eminently sound. For the
agreement secures the Freedom of the Seas, reducing armament to
the minimum required for sea police, that sea police being supplied
BEFORE THE WAR 41
by the associated armed neutrality on a basis of parity or pro-
portional resources and responsibility. And it also substitutes
this associated authority for that of Command of the Seas by
a Sovereign Sea Power. Which prevents any power using the
pretext of sea police to get the maximum naval force that its
fiscal resources can support or its imperial requirements may
demand or its naval rivals may tolerate. And it is evident
that the importance of such disarmament for the procuring
and preserving of peace was more clearly recognized by its
signatories than it has been in the subsequent century by its
beneficiaries.
For the principle of the Rush-Bagot arrangement as proclaimed
by John Quincey Adams to Congress (56th 1st Sess.) is that dis-
armament is the only practical preventive of war. What Mr. Adams
wrote to Lord Castlereagh a century ago as to Anglo-American armed
forces on the Great Lakes is equally true to-day of their antagonism
on the High Seas :
"It is evident that if each party augments its forces with a view to
obtaining an ascendancy over the other vast expense will be incurred
and the danger of a collision correspondingly augmented."
The Senate in approving the agreement endorsed this principle that
disarmament is the only true preliminary to peace. Unfortunately,
there was at that time no Anglo-American armed neutrality attain-
able that might have been capable of carrying this principle from
Anglo-American waters into the other Narrow Seas.
But, be it noted, this disarmament depended from day to day
for over a century on loyal acceptance of the principle. Had either
attempted at any time to sneak or snatch control of those vital
inland waterways the moral disarmament which is the basis of
material disarmament would have been lost. And a paper disarma-
ment can always be evaded, as Napoleon found with his artificial
limitations on the army of the Prussia he had defeated. We shall
expose later an example of the collapse of a more formal and general
disarmament arrangement because the American public thought
naval parity with England had been achieved at Washington in
1921, only to be disillusioned by the strictly legal cruiser building
for the British Admiralty in the years 1924 to 1927,
42 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
Similarly if, a century ago, a " mathematical parity " disarma-
ment had been enforced on the Great Lakes with political agreement
lacking, Americans and Canadians might not have built sailing ships
of war, but might to-day legally possess great fleets of fighting
aircraft with which to threaten one another.
Is France any less nervous of Germany to-day, despite the dis-
armament of the latter, her membership of the League of Nations,
and the guarantee of Italy and Britain by the pact of Locarno ?
Yet when passions cool and the memory of the war years fade on
either side of the Rhine a revision of the less just clauses of the
Treaty of Versailles should enable a real friendship to be established
between the two ancient enemies — if no war breaks out before then.
For if only two nations can agree on vital matters of common interest
and a bond of mutual necessity be established, disarmament on
paper will soon become disarmament in fact.
ANGLO-AMERICAN AMITY
After the Napoleonic Wars came a period of peace. The nineteenth
century was an epoch of economic expansion on both sides of the
Atlantic and of minor European wars between Governments for
limited objectives and in restricted and generally remote fields. The
psychology of the peoples was pacific.
The war fevers worked up by war interests often failed to produce
war — even in the most sensitive relations. As late as 1879 tne anti~
Russian agitation about Constantinople to which we owe the term
" Jingo " ended without war in a " peace with honour." And this
peace psychology, in spite of sporadic outbreaks of war psychosis,
was most marked in Anglo-American relations. Conflicting claims
for vast and valuable territories in the American Continent were
satisfactorily settled by diplomatic dickering. When it came out
that in the Webster-Ashburton partition of Maine both parties had
discovered — and suppressed — maps that established the claim of
their opponents — the peoples merely laughed. When the partition
of Oregon was negotiated in a clamour of " fifty-four forty or fight "
and such-like slogans, neither peoples took the bluffing of their
plenipotentiaries and the blustering of their Press very seriously.
Both peoples were satisfied to leave the neutrality of the Great Lakes
BEFORE THE WAR 43
to be guaranteed by nothing more than the Rush-Bagot Exchange
of Notes ; and this arrangement stood the strain of 1827 when
Americans aided and abetted a Canadian rebellion, when Canadian
raiders sent an American vessel — the Caroline — over Niagara, when
the Americans tried one of them for murder, and the British Govern-
ment threatened war if he were executed.
INTERNATIONAL LAW REINSTATED
It was the general prevalence of this peace psychology that rebuilt
the international Law of the Seas from the ruins left by the Napo-
leonic warfare of unrestricted reprisals. It was airily assumed by
the jurists that these essential expressions of the war had been
just exceptional irregularities and illegalities ; and that with peace
the principles of international law would be revived unimpaired and
unimpeached. Though why war, which voids public compacts and
private contracts alike, should avail nothing against these customs
and compromises of so-called international law is not clear to the
lay mind.
But undoubtedly the imposing corpus of case-law produced by
prize-court judgments and other settlements, which was, of course,
based on previous principles of " international law," had given these
principles a practical reinforcement and recognition. And Sea War
was still waged with the old weapons of wooden ships, battering or
boarding one another as in the days of the " Consolato del Mare."
So the lawyers revived the formulae of international law as in statu
quo ante helium and represented the fundamental facts as exceptions
proving the rule, or as " piracies " or " reprisals " according to
whether they were committed by foes or friends. While the sailors
went on building their " wooden walls " and didn't worry about
the steam and steel that was revolutionizing strategy and con-
struction. " Hearts of oak are our ships " — " Jolly tars are
our men " — " Ready, aye, ready," sang the patriots of that day.
But then, as now, they would have been readier if there had
been fewer heads of oak among the jolly tars and their political
chiefs.
In these conditions the principal European Sea Powers went to
war with one another in 1854 f°r reasons that are more clear to us
44 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
than they were to them. But the Crimean war was an imperial and
political war in which the winning of the war did not call for any
extreme expression of sea power. The British and French as
belligerents were, therefore, able to keep in view their commercial
interests as neutrals, and agree to a liberal regulation of their sea
warfare. It was consequently easy for sailors and sea-lawyers to
include in the peace the provisions of the Declaration of Paris (1856)
which promoted to the dignity of " international law " the practices
followed in the Crimean war, namely, (1) the abolition of privateer-
ing, (2) the exemption of non-contraband neutral goods on enemy
ships, (3) the exemption of non-contraband enemy goods on neutral
ships, (4) the abolition of " paper " blockades. The first two were
concessions by the French, the last two by the British. But the
Americans, to whom belligerency then seemed an unlikely contin-
gency and neutrality a natural condition, boldly demanded the
exemption of all private property at sea — a provision they had
already embodied in a treaty with Prussia (1785) and had pressed
on the Sea Powers unsuccessfully in 1823.
The British, still supreme at sea, rejected this reform, and the
Americans consequently did not adhere to the Declaration of Paris
being in this respect, with some South American States, the only
exceptions. An intransigence which a few years later they regretted
when their Civil War made them belligerents. However, in the
war of 1866, Prussia and Austria exempted private property at sea,
this being almost entirely a Land War. In 1870 Germany similarly
exempted the French, but exacted the usual less liberal practice
when the latter did not reciprocate and destroyed enemy prizes
without bringing them before a Prize Court. (Ludwig and
Vorwdrts.) In 1871 Italy included the immunity of private
property at sea in its treaty of commerce with the United States.
But with the general growth of imperialism and navalism in the last
quarter of the century there was a reaction against further develop-
ment of sea law towards a Freedom of the Seas on these lines.
And, at the Second Peace Conference, the British, French, Russians,
Japanese, and others all opposed such a Freedom of the Seas on
principle.
The assumption generally made by jurists that the Declaration of
Paris is " general international law " seems questionable in view of
BEFORE THE WAR 45
the fact — that it was not at the time agreeable either to the interests
and ideals of progressive opinion or to the interests of pacific neutral
peoples in the last century — that it has never been accepted by
Americans who may soon be the leading Sea Power — that none of
its provisions except that as to privateering, now obsolete, have
been observed in actual practice throughout any subsequent sea
warfare, i.e. in the American Civil War, in the Japanese-Russian
and Franco-German wars, or in the Great War — and that the
conditions of sea warfare on which it was based have now been
completely revolutionized.
AMERICAN CIVIL WAR — THE ROLES REVERSED
The Paris proceedings, in which America as a potential permanent
neutral pressed for reform, and the British, as a recent and fairly
regular belligerent, opposed it, were almost immediately followed
by the proceedings of the Civil War in which the roles were reversed.
There the U.S.A. was in the position of the dominant sea power
fighting for its existence against the destructive " piracies " of the
minor Sea Power it was reducing by blockade. The British Govern-
ment was a neutral whose sympathies were with its old enemies the
Southerners, and whose industrial and commercial interests were
suffering heavily from the cotton blockade and from the belligerencies
of Federal cruisers and Confederate commerce destroyers. So
Freedom of the Seas and immunity of private property went off the
American Bill of Fare ; and Chief Justice Chase applying " con-
tinuous voyage " stopped the influx of British goods to the Con-
federates by way of Cuba and the Bahamas. But the British were
by themselves then an " armed neutrality " capable of maintaining
their neutral rights to trade with the blockaded belligerent. " We
want cotton," Palmerston would growl in reply to the American
protests against blockade runners.
That the various acute crises that arose did not cause a war is
due not to any formulae of international law regulating the rights
and responsibilities of belligerents and neutrals, still less to any
statesmanship of either party, but to the fact that those British
neutrals who suffered most — the Lancashire cotton operatives and
the London capitalists — were most in sympathy with a war for the
46 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
suppression of slavery. We have, in fact, here a good example of the
rule that a neutral will assert her rights or accept restrictions on
them according to the view taken by her public opinion as to the
justice or otherwise of a belligerent's cause and not in accordance
with any abstract rule of " international law," or in allegiance to
any abstract authority of international institutions. And the recur-
rent evidence of this fact which, moreover, was recognized by Vattel
(III. f. 135) two centuries ago, is a far firmer foundation on which
to build a new regime of " international law " than evidence of the
revival in long periods of peace of legal formulae that are regularly
repudiated in the straits and under the strains of war. We have here
evidence also that apart from this underlying " moral " pressure,
the solutions of crises in such conflicts as those of the American civil
war are not based on conformity with international law but on
compromises of balance of power. The balance being struck
between resolution of the belligerent to win a war of vital impor-
tance and reluctance to risk an " armed neutrality " or an
additional belligerency.
Thus, during the last war, in October 1914 the Kim and three
other steamers, all of Norwegian or Swedish nationality, laden with
lard, meat, and other food products, the property of five American
meat-packing concerns, were intercepted at sea en route for Copen-
hagen ; their cargoes being consigned " to order." The case was
given against the shippers on circumstantial evidence, as for example
that during the two previous years only some million and a quarter
pounds of lard were imported into Denmark from all quarters, but
the quantity in the four ships in question alone mounted to nineteen
and a quarter million pounds. The concluding paragraph of the
Prize Court judgment was as follows (Sir S. Evans the Kim, 1915,
Probate) :
" We have arrived at the clear conclusion from the facts proved and the
reasonable and, indeed, irresistible inferences from them, that the cargoes
claimed by the shippers as belonging to them at the time of the seizure
were not on their way to Denmark to be incorporated into the common
stock of that country for consumption or bona-fide sale or otherwise ; but
on the contrary, that they were on their way not only to German territory
but also to the German Government and their forces, for naval and
military use, as their real ultimate destinations. To hold the contrary
BEFORE THE WAR 47
would be to allow one's eyes to be filled by the dust of theories and
technicalities and to be blind to the realities of the case."
So the dusty " theories and technicalities *' of international law were
dusted away and the goods were condemned as good prize. Of
course the American Government protested, and compensation for
the value of the goods amounting to fifteen million dollars was paid
to the meat packers. By such construction the jurisprudence of
blockade in sea law was developed and by similar concessions its
application was mitigated in favour of America, to the discouragement
of the British sea blockaders and to the loudly expressed disgust of
blockheaded publicists, politicians, and propagandists in London.
But this compromise between principle and policy was necessary in
order to avoid alienating the sympathies of the plutocracy and public
of the most powerful of the neutral peoples.
THE CIVIL WAR AND BRITISH SEA POWER
But we must return to the American Civil War. In the first issue
that arose — the British recognition of Southern belligerency — the
British were logically and legally right, for without such recognition
" international law " could not recognize and other powers could
not respect the Northern blockade. But undoubtedly a British
cabinet and ruling class in sympathy with the Republic could have
found a less offensive way out of the difficulty. In the Trent affair
the Americans were undoubtedly right in arresting the Southern
envoys and might quite properly have seized the steamer too. But
a Government less anxious to give the British " a dose of their own
medicine " would have avoided the issue. And it is very creditable
to the American statesmen that in the settlement they remained
loyal to the Freedom of the Seas and reverenced the letter of
the law.
In the more serious belligerent act of stopping the use of the
British port of Nassau as an entrepot for blockade runners by seizing
neutral goods and shipping passing between British ports and the
Bahamas, the Americans could again stew the British in their own
juice by taking advantage of the precedent of British action against
a similar use by the colonists of the Dutch West Indies in the War
of Independence (v. above). They thus reinforced the rigour of
48 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
blockade by adding the doctrine of " ultimate destination " to that
of " broken voyage " and to that of the " rule of 1756 " — a serious
restriction of the Freedom of the Seas that was, however, in complete
conformity with the real requirements of war. (Chief Justice Chase,
the Bermuda — the Peterhoff.) Finally the American claim against
the British for liability in respect of the Alabama and other commerce
destroyers, piratical in that these raiders had to destroy their cap-
tures without submission to any Prize Court other than that which
they held on their own decks, was settled by an arbitral Tribunal
that under judicial forms produced an arbitrary award that under
international law had little legal justification. In fact the undis-
tributed millions of the indemnity of $15,750,000 still presumably
in the American Treasury, might well now be used like the Chinese
indemnity for the promotion of better relations between the two
countries. But the United States had good moral cause for com-
plaint in the case of these Southern raiders, seeing that the respon-
sibility of neutrals for restraining their citizens from acts of war was
first clearly recognized by their Foreign enlistment Act (20th April,
1818) which served as basis for the first British Act of 1819, extended
by the Act of 1870.
SPANISH WAR AND AMERICAN SEA POWER
We now come to the first appearance of the American Navy as a
factor in the balance of power — that precarious cantilever which
eventually crashed with the weight of its own steel. And it was a
whole generation after the Civil War before, in the last years of the
century, the Monroe Doctrine and Freedom of the Seas caused war
between the United States and a European Sea Power.
Such a war between the United States and Spain was inevitable.
For, as already pointed out, both these policies conduce to bring the
United States into collision with a European State using its sea
power to coerce colonies in the American continents.
The Spanish colony of Cuba was a next-door neighbour of the
United States and one in especially close economic relations with
them — the principal industry, sugar, having been created and being
conducted by American money and management. Besides this
interested relationship there was a strong appeal to American
BEFORE THE WAR 49
idealism in the Cuban independence movement, whose repeated
revolts had more than once brought a Spanish- American war within
sight, as in the Virginius incident, when the Spanish authorities
executed some American filibusters.
Cuba had grown stronger as Spain had grown weaker, and the
Cuban revolt of the 'nineties soon reached that point at which the
Mother Country is reduced to systematic and shocking maltreatment
of a revolting daughter in the vain hope of recovering maternal
control. The campaign of General Weyler with its deliberate de-
struction of a prosperous community and with its disease-stricken
and starving concentration camps, was rightly considered in the
United States as a crime against civilization that called for inter-
national intervention. But the mandate for such intervention had
long been assumed by the United States under the Monroe doctrine
and could only be applied by the American Navy as a sea police.
Nevertheless the Americans are a pacific people and both an insult
and an injury were indispensable to carry them into war. The first
was supplied by the publication in the New York Press of a private
letter written by the Spanish Minister in Washington referring to
the President, Mr. McKinley, as a " weak " and a " would-be "
politician. There was nothing incorrect in this letter, which, more-
over, as the State Department at once pointed out, must have
been " criminally obtained " — but it served. And Americans were
ready for war when the match was put to the magazine by the blow-
ing up of the Maine, an American battleship sent as a naval demon-
stration, while in Havana Harbour, with a loss of two hundred
American lives. Two subsequent examinations of the wreck pro-
duced evidence that the explosion was external ; but later experi-
ence as to the effect of change of climate on high explosives and as
to the action of internal explosions suggests that it was accidental.
While there is always the probability that, if a crime, it was com-
mitted by a Cuban. But it also served. And America, the sovereign
Sea Power of the future, tried its new teeth on Spain, the sovereign
Sea Power of the past.
50 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
A DIGRESSION INTO AGRESSION
This " war of aggression " by America, with its very questionable
casus belli and its most unquestionable cause for belligerency, is
commended to the careful study both of those pacifists who believe
in keeping the peace by legal formulae and of those patriots who
believe that the Monroe Doctrine will always be accepted as a
principle of international law by other sea powers. For on this
occasion it most certainly was not so accepted. Spain had already
surrendered on all the points at issue or agreed to submit them to
arbitration. Pacific public opinion in Europe considered that the
Americans were being carried into a war of aggression by the Sugar
Trust's control of politics and of the Press and by underground
conspiracies. The attitude of the continental governments was that
the United States were intervening in a domestic dispute between
Spain and a colony with a view to capturing the colony for them-
selves. Which formidable combination of public opinion and political
interest produced in Washington a combined move of the European
Powers towards forcing mediation and moderation on the American
Government.
One of the writers was at that time in the Washington Embassy
under Lord Pauncefote — a diplomatist of exceptional character and
capacity. By training a lawyer and by temperament a pacifist, he
has an honoured place in history as the author of the first General
Arbitration Treaty ; which though torpedoed by the Senate left
floating in official files much material which went to build future
Treaties. He at once took the lead in the joint intervention for peace
that was being organized in the Washington Diplomatic Corps, at
the instigation of continental Governments. His staff, who took
the narrow view that Anglo-American relations mattered much
more than the cause of arbitration or the preservation of peace, were
dismayed. Happily at the eleventh hour and the fifty-ninth minute
the British Government took the same less liberal line ; which though
wrong in its moral principles as these were understood at the time,
was right in the more fundamental moral principles that have since
been analysed and that underlie the arguments hereinafter advanced.
On the very morning of the day (6th April, 1898) on which the
BEFORE THE WAR 51
Presidential message that would produce war was to be put before
Congress, the Ambassadors of the six Great Powers, including
Great Britain, had' jointly appealed for peace and caused the
postponement of the message. On the same afternoon came
cabled instructions, and Sir Julian Pauncefote, as he then was,
thereupon altered his course with what his chief, Lord Salisbury,
once called an " abrupt curve," and that with such promptitude
and prestidigitation that it has never to this day been detected.
And he legitimately earned the affection of the American public
as a friend who had caused the consequent collapse of the com-
bination against them, and less legitimately the admiration of his
colleagues as a farceur assez fin who had left them " to carry
the baby."
The moral of this " cautionary tale " of Victorian days, told here
for the first time, is that the most pacific and politic of public men
cannot see through all the millstones of the Mills of God — that an
indefeasible definition of a " war of aggression " has still to be
drafted — and that an Anglo-American association in world policy
and sea police is a sounder and safer security and sanction for peace
than any such definition can ever be. For who will question to-day
but that the short and sharp cutting out of the cancer of Spanish
imperialism from the body politic of America was better for the
peace and progress of the world than such a prolonged remedial
treatment as was applied, for example, to the Ottoman cancer
in Macedonia — a treatment that expressed international inter-
vention formally while leaving its real intentions fundamentally
unexecuted.
We have not selected this example in which Uncle Sam appears
as an " aggressor " because of his present unpopularity with the
British as the Paris who is eloping with their Helen and Command
of the Seas. The Spanish- American War was probably inevitable,
and it would be easy to find many incidents in comparatively recent
history in which it would have been extremely difficult for any one
nation and, still more, any group of nations to decide who was the
aggressor in the war. One example would be the insurrectionary
wars of the Balkans against the perfectly legal sovereignty of the
Sultan. From many such examples we will pick out one con-
spicuous case. On the eve of the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian
52 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
War Mr. Gladstone sent the following letter on 15th July, 1870, to
Queen Victoria :
" Mr. Gladstone presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and
reports that at the meeting of the House of Commons to-day Mr. Disraeli
(leader of the Opposition) made enquiries from the Government respecting
the differences between France and Prussia, and in so doing expressed
opinions strongly adverse to France as the apparent aggressor. Mr.
Gladstone in replying admitted it to be the opinion of the Government
that there was no matter known to be in controversy of a nature to
warrant a disturbance of the general peace. He said the course of events
was not favourable, and the decisive moment must in all likelihood be
close at hand.
" Before four came the telegram which announced the French
declaration of war. It is evident that the sentiment of the House on
both sides generally condemns the conduct of France."
The sentence of history, on the other hand, now generally con-
demns the conduct of Germany and tells us that Bismarck tricked
Louis Napoleon into appearing as the " aggressor."
A FIRST ANGLO-AMERICAN ALLIANCE
Returning across the Atlantic to the Spanish American War we
find that once hostilities were begun the Anglo-American association
in the war was only restricted by British respect for the more formal
requirements of neutrality. The part played, for example, by the
British Naval and Military Attaches at Washington after accepting
invitations to attend " very informally " the consultations of the
American Expeditionary Staffs has never been revealed. Though
one of the present writers could tell the story, having been present
himself at the embarkation of the expedition, he feels it is for Lord
Lee to tell it or not, as he pleases. It will be enough for the present
purpose to say that the British Naval Attache was practically
Commodore of the fleet of transports, and that his contribution to
the successful debut of the American Navy was no less than that
of his British colleague at Manila with its famous slogan of " Blood
is thicker than water." It was, of course, all very incorrect — the
Naval Attache of a neutral Embassy navigating the transports that
were invading the colony of a friendly State (Spain), or the Admiral
BEFORE THE WAR 53
of a neutral fleet (the British) threatening to fire on the fleet of a
friendly Power (Germany) unless it stopped covering another friendly
fleet (the Spanish) from attack. But if our sailors sailed very
near the wind in keeping on the " windy side of the law," they were
on the right tack. Mr. Hay, American Ambassador in London at
the time, reports :
" I find the drawing-room sentiment altogether with us. If we wanted
it we could have the practical assistance of the British Navy."
He had it more than he knew.
The impression made on American feeling by this aid and com-
fort was profound. It can be compared, indeed, with the effect
made on British opinion by the American assistance on a far larger
scale and on a far worse crisis twenty years later. For America,
though she entered the war with Spain light-heartedly, soon felt
nervous about this new experience. For example, when the Spanish
pride drove the unfortunate Admiral Cervera and his hastily
mobilised squadron out across the Atlantic to certain destruction
by the American fleet, the news that the Spanish fleet had put to
sea sent the summer boarders flying inland in panic from every
Atlantic coastal resort. And the successful voyage of the battleship
Oregon from the Pacific to the Atlantic was applauded as though
rounding the Horn in summer was an unprecedented feat of naviga-
tion. The American Navy's feelings towards the co-operation and
countenance given it by the British Navy was indeed something
like that of an American debutante at her first European Court
Ball who finds herself treated as a younger sister by a Dowager
Duchess.
Not that the debutante didn't know even then how to stand on
her rights. One of the present writers was entrusted with the task
of extricating from captivity a British collier, one of those sent out
by the Spanish to coal Cervera 's fleet. The old Welsh Captain
of this Restormel had successfully played hide-and-seek with the
American cruisers round the West Indian Islands by anticipating
many of the dodges for camouflage and concealment afterwards
rediscovered in the Great War. But within a few miles of Santiago
harbour and safety he was run down by what he described as a
" New York skyscraper travelling like the Chicago Limited " —
54 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
which was the transatlantic liner St. Paul converted into an
armed cruiser. Upon which, like a prudent man, he took refuge in
the " diplomatic channels."
AN ANGLO-AMERICAN ARMED NEUTRALITY
Passing over several " secondary " wars which imposed no severe
strain on the precepts of international law, even though these were
already falling behind relationship with realities, we come to the
great struggle in Eastern Asia between Russians and Japanese. In
this struggle British and Americans were neutrals and imposed
respect for sea law on the Russian naval commanders who were
tempted to resort to commerce destruction in reprisal for the
Japanese blockade. The Russians sank five British vessels — the
Knight Commander, the Hipsang, the St. Kilda, the Oldhamia, and
the Ikhona. In all these cases the crews, passengers, and mails
were taken off. Some persons were killed by gunfire on board the
Hipsang, but she was attempting to escape and refused to stop
after repeated warning shots. The Oldhamia was sunk by accident,
having been run ashore by her prize crew through faulty navigation.
The other three were sunk under the Russian naval prize regulations,
which allowed of their destruction for military reasons, stated in
this case to be fear of recapture. In every one of these cases, and
especially that of the Knight Commander, the most vigorous protests
were made by the British Government, and the imminence of British
intervention in the naval war was quite sufficiently indicated. The
Russian Government accordingly receded from its position and gave
stringent orders to its naval commanders to avoid a repetition of
such incidents.
It would undoubtedly not have done so with such promptitude,
and the British might have been involved in the war, had not the
United States Government joined in the protests against the
destruction of the Knight Commander, and had not the Russian
Government been officially informed by the State Department (30th
July, 1904) that it —
" viewed with the gravest concern the application of similar treatment
to American vessels and cargoes." (U.S. Foreign Relations 1904, page
734-)
BEFORE THE WAR 55
And it was this Anglo-American association in an armed neutrality
that preserved the peace when an even more serious crisis arose.
The Russian Baltic Fleet, on its way to the Far East and on
passage through the North Sea, came after dark upon the Hull
steam fishing-fleet trawling in its usual formation near the Dogger
Bank. Some of these Russian warships suddenly opened fire, sank
several trawlers with loss of life and hurried on their course. It was
supposed that the practice of organized trawler fleets of manoeuvring
under an " admiral," whose light signals they obeyed, had led the
Russians to assume that they had come into contact with a hostile
squadron of destroyers secretly purchased by the Japanese in
Europe. But even the jovial traditions of the Tzarist naval messes
or the temperamental nerves of pre-revolutionary Russians sailing
to certain destruction cannot explain such a mistake by sailors.
One of the present writers heard from the best possible source a
better explanation that there can be no harm in publishing now for
the first time. It was that the Russian secret service had warned
the sailors that trawlers had been hired by Japanese agents to tow
lines of mines across the course of the fleet. Accordingly when lines
of trawlers appeared towing their trawls, the Russians were expect-
ing them and fired incontinently. They thereby sailed into the trap
prepared by hostile secret agents who had allowed their Russian
colleagues to come into possession of their supposed plots. And in
this underground war of espionage the Russians narrowly escaped
total discomfiture. For the British fleet was at once mobilized and
only prompt apologies and acceptance of enquiry and awards to the
sufferers by the Russians prevented war. And the moral is that
naval armaments and intelligence services are dangerous weapons
that some obscure blunder may make a cause of destruction rather
than of defence to the country that pays their costly upkeep.
Security by the guarantee of an armed neutrality is at least not
exposed to this danger.
IMPERIALISM V. INTERNATIONALISM
We have now to consider the last effort to give international
regulation of war at sea a general system and sanction. This
occurred in that last quarter of the nineteenth century, in the course
56 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
of which the balance of power at sea on the old basis of battle-
ships and naval bases had been raised to its highest expression.
This was the age in Great Britain of Two and Three-Power Standards
of building programmes and naval panics, of " We want eight and
we won't wait." In Germany it was followed by the age of a bid
for parity on the seas and for a " place in the sun." The transition
from pacifism to militarism is marked in the British peoples by a
comparison of the ceremonial of the 1887 Royal Jubilee, which
was as civilian in character as the exigencies of costume and colour
allow, with the military panoply of the 1897 celebrations. In the
German people it was marked by the " sabre rattling " and " shining
armour " of the new War Lord as compared with predecessors who
represented the gemutlichkeit of old Germany. For modern
monarchies are democratised to the extent of having to conform in
their costumes to a military mood of the ruling class.
On the other hand, the preparations for war evoked a corre-
sponding effort by the peoples to reinforce peace. And it was recog-
nised that the only real way to this was through a reduction of
armaments by agreement. Failing this, a substitute was sought by
restricting and regulating war, by reinforcing the precepts of
" international law " and by recognizing the principle of judicial
arbitration. Every fresh evidence that the impending war would
be universal and unrestrained by any respect for honour or humanity
was met by attempts to pledge Governments to accept all-in
arbitration and other preventatives of war. It was magnificent
but it was not war. And Europe was infected with war — the war
fever that broke out in 19 14.
As the practical results of the Hague Peace Conference and of
other pacifist proceedings were all either evaded or erased by the
Great War within the same generation, it will be enough for our
present purpose to review very briefly their more essential and least
ephemeral features. The pious resolutions that they produced were
necessarily compromises between various international and national
ideals and interests. But in the main there were two opposing
forces — on the one side a loose association of public movements
demanding the prevention of war, expressed through politicians,
publicists, and jurists — on the other the political and professional
responsibility for warlike preparation, which was expressed through
BEFORE THE WAR 57
a close alliance of realist politicians with naval and military experts.
The first of these — the pacifist camp, was weakened by having no
very general definite programme for war prevention and by having
as leaders politicians who were also personally responsible for war
preparation. The British pacifists, looking forward to a political
horizon on which the storm clouds were already gathering, and
ignorant of the automatic ddclanchements arranged by secret
diplomacy, were inclined to concentrate on postponing formal
declarations of war by preliminary procedures and on prohibiting
the more odious weapons.
The Americans, whose sky was as yet clear, looking back on a
century of comparative peace, and ignoring the fact that " inter-
national law," whether customary or conventional, had broken
down whenever seriously contrary to the belligerent interest even
in secondary wars, considered the time was ripe for raising these
customary rules to the status of an international code. As against
these pacifist idealists the naval and military realists engaged
between themselves in a preliminary warfare for securing that the
results of the Conferences should give their own side an advantage
in the war for which they were preparing. And the resultant
regulations represent the confused compromises created by these*
latter expert manoeuvres for position, rather than any common
consensus gentium as to what were the general principles and
practices of international law.
THE HAGUE CONFERENCE
We shall pass over the First Hague Conference (1899), which
was almost immediately followed by the South African and Russo-
Japanese Wars and did little more than advertise the Anglo-
American plan of arbitration as a substitute for war. And, turning
to the Second Hague Conference (1907) we find that, so far as the
Americans and British were concerned, conditions were very
favourable. In America the prestige in the Republican party of
that hundred per cent. American, Roosevelt, and of the corporation
lawyer, Root, was overcoming the opposition of the Senate reaction-
aries and of the American ruling class to the principle of judicial
arbitration. Moreover, the good seed sown by the Olney-Paunceforte
58 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
treaty of the nineties that had fallen on stony ground in the Hague
and that had been choked by thorns in the Senate, now bore fruit
in the " Root " crop of treaties, followed by the " Bryan " after-
math. In England a Liberal Government pledged to disarmament
and peace had swept the country in 1906. The American ruling
class was still critical and the British ruling class so cynical that
the Times could jeer at the Conference as a sham. But the American
delegation to the Hague could give expression to pacifist public
opinion now thoroughly alarmed at the armed alignments in
Europe. And even the British Government was stirred to making
eventually a drastic departure from the navalist policy of its
predecessors.
Unfortunately discussion of disarmament was vetoed by the
Continental Powers as a condition of coming into Conference, and
the agenda was accordingly restricted to regulation of war. A
regulation of the "Law and Practice of Naval Warfare" was
accepted as one of the agenda ; and the instructions of the British
delegates adopted the pacifist attitude of the day that —
" anything which restrains acts of war is in itself a step towards the
abolition of all war, and by diminishing the apprehension of the evils
which war would cause, removes one incentive to expenditure on
armaments "
— a fallacy no doubt and one that was curiously contradicted in
a later paragraph of the same instructions which gave as one of the
reasons for rejecting the immunity of private property at sea that —
" it was likely to so limit the prospective liability of war as to remove
some of the considerations which would restrain public opinion from
contemplating it, and might after the outbreak of war tend to prolong it."
IMMUNITY OF PRIVATE PROPERTY
The Americans had again put forward their policy for the
immunity of private property at sea with a reservation of the right
of effective blockade, and though not ruled out by the British it was
rejected on the ground that —
" the British Navy is the only offensive weapon which Great Britain has
against Continental Powers "
BEFORE THE WAR 59
and that —
" such immunity would deprive it of the full rights of commercial
blockade."
But the increased importance of America appears in the sop that
was held out by the assurance — ■
" that in case of disarmament the British Government might feel that
the risks they would run by adhering to such an agreement and the
objection to it in principle would be outweighed by the general gain and
relief."
For America by then had quite a respectable navy that counted in
calculations of the balance of sea power.
The American proposal was received in much the same spirit of
professed open-mindedness, but private obstruction, by eleven
other Powers, including France, Russia, and Japan ; while twenty-
two, including Germany, Austria, and Italy supported it. Germany,
indeed, immediately pointed out that the exception in favour of
blockade might permit a general evasion of the exemption ; while
Great Britain saw a similar possibility of evasion in an unrestricted
right of declaring contraband. Both of these contentions were
true enough ; and if the exemption had been generally approved
as " law of nations " it would not have prevented or even postponed
the unrestricted naval warfare by way of reprisals in the Great War.
As it was — by forcing this broad and basic issue of ** Freedom of
the Seas " to a division that reproduced the two armed camps — by
thus associating it in British minds with the policy of the Central
Powers in fighting British sea power — and by reserving the right of
blockade so as to conciliate British opposition, the Americans gave
their traditional cause a set-back.
CONTRABAND AND BLOCKADE
The British, then on their side, renewed their very practical
proposal for abolishing contraband altogether ; which also at first
sight seemed a concession to Freedom of the Seas. For contraband,
one of the conceptions on which customary "international law in
war " was based, and round which most such case-law had been
built, had been rendered utterly unreasonable and unrealizable by
the developments of modern war.
60 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
The gradual inclusion in war making of the whole civil man power
and industrial machinery had rendered obsolete the old conception
of contraband and the old controversies as to whether this or that
food or manufacture should be classified as absolute or conditional
contraband. For whether contraband is confined to an insignificant
and obsolete prohibition of the supply of swords and saddlery as in
the Elizabethan Order in Council (27th July, 1589), or, as in the
Orders in Council of the 13th April, 1916, is construed into a pre-
vention of all trade by being made to include foodstuffs and other
goods capable of military use sent under continuous voyage through
neutral ports, entirely depended on the policy of belligerents and
on the power of neutrals. Of this controversy there was and is no
solution. A sword is absolute contraband, a reaping-hook non-
contraband, a hammer to beat reaping-hooks into swords conditional
contraband, and the steel for a reaping-hook to cut wheat for the
army is — what ? Moreover, the concomitants of contraband had
all become equally confused. Search at sea was no longer practicable
in view of the size of ships. " Continuous transport " by rail, road,
and canal to the enemy from a neutral port had become almost as
easy and economical as direct shipment. ' ' Destination to the army ' '
had become meaningless when a whole nation was mobilized.
Wherefore the British, who are a practical, if not a logical, race,
were prepared to cut loose this whole clutter of mediaeval tackle and
substitute a system of Consular certificates as to the non-military
character of cargoes. The principal anxiety of the British Govern-
ment of the day was to remove restrictions and annoyances from our
neutral commerce. We thought of ourselves still as normally
neutral. And the British commercial classes had the liveliest
recollections of inconvenience during the Russo-Japanese War.
As neutrals the British, dependent as they were, and are, on
foreign food and raw materials, might have had all these interfered
with as contraband under continuous transport. While as belliger-
ents they could enforce an economic blockade by such a system of
certificates under sanction of sea power. The British, in fact,
proposed to abolish contraband and establish a belligerent's
right to blockade under regulations in conformity with modern
conditions.
Thus Great Britain in her pre-war power and pride boldly made
BEFORE THE WAR 61
an attempt single-handed at this second Hague Conference to
revise international law ; but she failed because the British delegates
were not possessed of the information as to modern conditions
which the war subsequently provided. The proposal was practical
and not unprincipled, though it set free British command of the sea
from ancient shackles in the event of a British belligerency. But
" the nations not so blessed as she " in sea power had no intention of
falling for that particular tyrant. Twenty-six minor States were
still prepared to accept a British sea police on its own terms. But
the sea-going powers — Germany, France, Russia, and America —
opposed. The United States, though not prepared to abolish
contraband, were in favour of restricting it to the most obvious
military supplies. American interests were, in fact, already the
same as British in respect of contraband. For these two nations
were the principal sources of supply in munitions and war material
to the war makers of the world. But at that time the much smaller
American Navy, with the recollections of its recent naval war with
Spain, made Americans unwilling to rely solely on blockade. As
to the other sea powers, France and Germany, their reasons for
opposing were as obvious as their representations for doing so were
obscure. But they had on their side the general consensus
gentium that a neutral should not profit through its private
traders by a traffic in arms prohibited to it as a State. The situation
suggested an Armed Neutrality in the making and a re-alignment of
balance of sea power that would cut right across the armed camps
in which land power was already organized.
THE DECLARATION OF LONDON
So the project was dropped and the Conference, since contraband
was not abolished, clearly had to define it — as without some agreed
definition the proposed international prize court certainly could not
function. But, as we have seen, a sound — even a sane — definition
was impossible, and in view of the chaotic conflict of interests
involved, the Conference was forced back on the old formulae of
" absolute " and " conditional " contraband with the addition of a
M free list " of absolute non-contraband (Decl. of London, Arts.
22-28).
62 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
In the resultant Declaration of London anything except what
was on the " free list " might be declared " conditional " and
everything " conditional " might be made " absolute." The free
list did not include food, but did include cotton, rubber, ores, and
other materials of the first importance to war makers in general and
Germany in particular. Moreover, as " absolute " contraband was
liable to capture only when consigned to an enemy port and " con-
ditional " contraband only when proved to be for consumption by
enemy forces, and as " continuous transport " was not applicable
to conditional contraband — Germany secured the right of importing
food and all conditional contraband through convenient neutral
ports in Holland and Sweden. In fact, these articles in the
Declaration of London (34 and 35) were adopted bodily from the
German draft (Lord Desborough, H. of Lords, 4th March, 1911).
And in its other compromises connected with contraband the
Declaration was no less disadvantageous to British and American
interests — whether as principal neutrals or belligerents. For
example, Art. 48 provided that prizes must not be destroyed at sea
— the usual practice of the commerce-destroyer without command of
the sea. But the following Art. 49 excepted cases when the security
of the commerce-destroyer or the success of her campaign could be
imperilled — and when could they not ? In short, in this preliminary
wordy war of the jurists, Germany secured an advantage so great
that it was likely only to be of practical value in war with Great
Britain by forcing on the latter a repudiation of the Declaration
and a rupture with America.
No wonder the Declaration of London caused so little satisfaction
both to those British who were already preparing for a war with
Germany, and to those who thought the best insurance against such
a war would be an international association for a new Freedom of
the Seas. And such an association might have been secured had
there been an agreement between the British and Americans as to
the abolition of capture of private property at sea and of contra-
band, subject to a right of blockade.
We have seen that the British in giving up contraband as a bad
job relied in future belligerencies on commercial blockade. But the
Declaration of London took the edge and point off the blockade
weapon. For the expected enemy — Germany — could with little
BEFORE THE WAR 63
inconvenience import all she required through Dutch or Swedish
ports immune to blockade. Moreover, modern weapons of the
minor sea power such as mines, submarines, and aeroplanes, had
already made a close blockade impossible ; and it was very question-
able whether neutrals would accept as an effective blockade a long
distance cordon or a preventive patrol on the High Seas. Nor
would even this be effective in most cases except under inter-
pretations of " continuous voyage." An attempt was indeed made
at the Naval Conference to impose an artificial limitation on the
blockading radius of one thousand miles, but this was rejected.
The French formula eventually adopted was that "the question
whether a blockade is effective is a question of fact " (Art. 3),
which is irrefutable.
On the other hand, Arts. 2 and 18 restricted the blockade rigidly
to belligerent ports, and Art. 19 relieved from capture any vessel
steering for a neutral port whatever its ultimate destination —
which was a repudiation of " continuous voyage." Moreover, there
was nothing novel in this — it was a fair codification of the customary
law. But under modern conditions of world commerce it un-
doubtedly deprived sea power of blockade — its most effective weapon
for reducing a land power.
We might continue this process through all the clauses of the
Declaration of London in restriction of belligerency, but we wiJl
only point out one other respect in which this attempt to codify
" international law " was doomed to break down under the strain
of war.
The prohibition of privateering in the Declaration of Paris is
often quoted as a successful example of a prohibition of a weapon
of war. But that this weapon (already obsolete) was merely super-
seded, not suppressed, is shown by the insistence of secondary sea
Powers at the Conference on the right to use a mercantile marine
for war under the naval flag. Nor were the British successful in
getting any regulation, still less any restriction of such conversion.
Thus a belligerent might buy ships and armaments from neutrals
and combine and convert them into warships at sea as in the
Alabama case. A more formidable threat to British commerce
when neutral, or a more formidable task for British cruisers when
belligerent, can scarcely have been conceived. (See Conventions VI
64 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
and VII annexed to the Final Act of the Second Peace Conference,
18th October, 1907, and Arts. 55-56 of the Declaration of
London.)
Small wonder that the House of Lords rejected the Prize Court
Bill based on the Declaration, with general approval from public
opinion. And how right was this British attitude was shown when
the war broke out. The Foreign Office in the course of the war
circulated a Memorandum (7th July, 1916) explaining why the
British had to depart from all the rules of the Declaration of London.
We will content ourselves by quoting four short paragraphs ; but
they are crucial :
" The manifold developments of naval and military science, the
invention of new engines of war, the concentration by the Germanic
Powers of the whole body of their resources on military ends has produced
conditions altogether different from those prevailing in previous naval
wars."
" The rules laid down in the Declaration of London could not stand
the strain imposed by the test of rapidly changing conditions and
tendencies which could not have been foreseen."
" The Allied Governments were forced to recognize the situation thus
created, and to adapt the rules of the Declaration from time to time to
meet these changing conditions."
" These successive modifications may perhaps have exposed the
purpose of the Allies to misconstruction; they have therefore come to
the conclusion that they must confine themselves simply to applying
the historic and admitted rules of the law of nations."
The Declaration of London, that final and most formal instrument
of international law, was bound to break down in application,
firstly, because it was not in relation with the revolutionary changes
in modern blockades ; and, secondly, because there was no " Armed
Neutrality " behind it.
LAW, WAR AND PEACE
The other results of this effort to regulate naval war were in the
direction of restricting or restraining belligerents in the use of naval
weapons. Pacifists found justification for this on grounds of their
BEFORE THE WAR 65
inhumanity — jurists on grounds of their incompatibility with the
customs or compromises of an " International Law " that had
grown out of the long stabilization of naval warfare — while experts
as usual could jockey each other over such prohibitions as well as
over any other proposals.
We need not dwell at any length on the incipient efforts to restrict
novel naval weapons in the Conventions of the Hague and Naval
Conferences. They none of them survived the war, and they all
of them belong to a sentimental order of ideas that never was to the
point and that is now becoming impracticable. Anyone sufficiently
interested can consult these Conventions annexed to the Final Act
of the Second Peace Conference. (See Appendix to Oppenheim's
Inter. Law.) Convention VIII concerns mines and torpedoes :
IX prohibits the bombardment of open towns : X regulates hospital
ships : XI restricts interference with mail boats and fishing boats,
and requires the release of merchant crews : XII regulates the
proposed international Prize Court : XIII regulates the rights and
responsibilities of neutrals as to naval warfare in respect of contra-
band, etc. : and XIV prohibits the dropping of explosives from the
air.
Now the consensus gentium and international conventions
may avail to maintain a system of regulations against some new
weapon of especial atrocity such as exploding bullets or poison in
wells, that does not alter the general conditions of warfare or give
any one Power especial advantage. But international law will not
prevent or even postpone a new weapon of destruction that revo-
lutionizes war or re-weights the Balance of Power. Thus gunpowder
which revolutionized war, wrecked chivalry and ruined the feudal
system, and was as odious in that age as is gas to-day. But gun-
powder and the democratization of war, or as it seemed then, its
demoralization, was accepted as we shall have to accept gas and its
indiscriminate destruction of life. Gunpowder in the end has
worked for good, by making war odious. It is our job to see that
gas bombs make war " outlawed."
In any case, the cause of " International Law " and Freedom of
the Seas cannot be served by using their institutions and ideals to
bolster up naval warfare in two dimensions — now that the submarine
and aeroplane are rapidly blossoming out into naval warfare in
66 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
three. It is all to the good that these " paper blockades M of war
are so clearly shown to be ineffective. Those pacifists or jurists who
believe that peace will be secured by reviving them would do well
to ponder that most practical provision of the Declaration of
London: "the question whether a blockade is effective is a
question of fact/' The Temple of Peace will have to be built on
naval facts, not on legal fictions.
CHAPTER II
COMMAND OF THE SEAS IN THE WAR
THE Great War was, at sea, a struggle between Great
Britain and Germany for command of the Narrow Seas.
In this struggle Great Britain kept command of the sea
by sheer weight of surface shipping against the challenge
of German submarines and mines. The German claim to have had
a command of a sort must be allowed. If " Britannia's march was
o'er the mountain waves," Germania's " Home was in the deep."
For the fact is that — as Admiral Mahan recognised — a sort of
secondary and local command of the sea can be seized on occasion
by a secondary sea power. He drew a distinction between such
secondary command and the true command which conveys a more
or less constant and complete control of High Sea routes and Narrow
Sea regions — of oversea bases and on enemy coasts. This latter
he called a " working command." The term is not well chosen,
because nowadays secondary command " works " as successfully
and even more sensationally. Thus the German surface squadrons
bombarded our coast towns, while we were unable to retaliate.
The German submarine blockade by commerce destruction brought
us in weeks to an extremity not much better than that to which
our surface blockade of commerce " deviation " had reduced them
in years.
Indeed, the difference between these two forms of blockade is
to-day rather in their effect on neutrals than in their effectiveness
against an enemy. In this neutral aspect they might be distin-
guished as a " regular " and an " irregular " blockade. But as
we shall be considering them here rather in their aspect as a form
of belligerency we shall call the more regular blockade of the
superior sea power a " cut-and-dried " command of the sea, and
that of the inferior sea power which tends to become piratical raiding,
67
68 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
a " cut-and-run " command. The Germans obtained a cut-and-run
command of our commercial routes and coast towns, which is ominous
for the possibilities of future blockades and bombardments by the
submarine and aeroplane.
The war began with the British immediately establishing their
" cut-and-dried " command of the sea. German merchant vessels
were driven from the seas and German warships reduced to cut-
and-run tactics. The British then began to develop a strict cut-
and-dried blockade of the Germans by commerce " deviation " —
the Germans retaliating with development of a cut-and-run blockade
by commerce destruction ; in which war of reprisals both parties
respected the principles and provisions of international law only
in so far as policy required. Policy imposed a respect for the rights
of that most powerful neutral and potential belligerent, the United
States. And the Germans being able to profess an unqualified
allegiance to the principle of Freedom of the Seas and to the pro-
visions of the Declaration of London had, at first, much the stronger
position.
THE NAVAL WAR AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
On the outbreak of war the Americans asked the belligerents
whether the Declaration of London would be observed, recom-
mending that it should. For it was not formally binding, as the
Powers, including the United States, had not deposited their
ratifications. As to its moral obligation — it had been signed by
all the principal Powers and had been proclaimed by Italy in its
little war with Turkey (13th October, 1913). On the other hand,
the British House of Lords had rejected the Naval Prize Bill which
embodied many of its provisions, and that, too, with the full
approval of British public opinion. The British Government
accordingly replied that it would adopt these rules —
" subject to certain modifications and additions which they judged
indispensable to the efficient conduct of their naval operations,"
and their allies replied in similar terms. The German Government
and its allies accepted the rules, provided they were applied by other
belligerents. But as conditional and partial acceptance was contrary
IN THE WAR 69
to Art. 65, the Americans declared (22nd October, 1914) that their
neutrality would be regulated by —
" the existing rules of international law and the Treaties of the United
States, irrespective of the Declaration of London."
And, as the United States had never accepted formally the Declara-
tion of Paris, this left them to assert their rights as neutrals on the
basis of their national policy rather than on that of international
law.
Much the same situation prevailed in respect to the Hague Con-
ventions regulating Sea Warfare. These had none of them been
ratified by all the signatories and were therefore binding on none.
With the general result that the rules of international law had little,
if any, effect in regulating or restraining the belligerents — though
referred to by them with every respect in relations with neutrals.
Similarly the Prize Courts recognized them in principle while only
applying such provisions as suited their belligerent interests, (e.g.
Sir S. Evans, The Mowe).
THE WAR OF REPRISALS
As soon as it became evident that a " knock-out " on land was
unattainable and that a war of exhaustion was inevitable, the attitude
of America became all-important. The United States were not only
an Armed Neutrality capable of decisive intervention ; they were
also such a source of supply in manufactures and materials as made
them a decisive factor, even without belligerency, in a war of exhaus-
tion. Moreover the attitude of Americans would be decided by
their own policy and predelictions. Their traditional policy was for
Freedom of the Seas in opposition to British Sea Power ; while the
political activity of the Germans and Irish made the Middle West
and Eastern citizens as anti-British as had been the South in 1812.
Wherefore the Germans would probably have been better advised
if they had " refused " their sea-front and had left the Americans
to fight for them their battle for Freedom of the Seas against the
British blockade. But this the Germans could not do, because
they had built a fleet which promised them a secondary cut-and-run
command of the sea ; and this, again, had put them in the hands of
70 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
naval extremists. Also because the rules of international law and
the interests of American business allowed America to become a
source of war supply to the Allies from which the Germans were
excluded ; and the consequent inequity was intolerable to German
public opinion.
Germany therefore sought, with German thoroughness, a cut-and-
run command of the sea. This the mine and submarine made more
than ever effective for commerce destruction, but also more than
ever offensive to neutral rights. One of these double-edged weapons
they had already grasped as a measure of offensive defence in the
first hours of the war. The non-ratification of the Hague Convention
VIII and the reservations in its Articles 2 and 3 had left minelaying
practically unregulated. But it had condemned floating mines
in the open sea, and on the first day of war the minelayer Konigin
Louise was sunk by the British in flagrante delicto of having strewn
the High Seas with floating mines in anticipation of hostilities. Such
minelaying was thereafter continued, even, it was alleged, by fishing
boats under neutral flag ; and British warships and neutral merchant
vessels were thereby sunk with loss of life. This enabled the British
to proclaim (28th September, 1914) a zone in which neutral fishing
boats would be suspect of minelaying — sunk if detected — and the
crews shot if they resisted. The Dutch protested but without avail.
The British then proclaimed (2nd Oct.) certain areas as dangerous
for neutral navigation owing to mines ; and further proclaimed
(3rd November) the whole North Sea as a military area in which
neutral navigation must follow certain routes. Which was the
beginning of the British cut-and-dried mine blockade as afterwards
extended and established (May 1916 and January 1917), so as to bring
under British control all seaborne commerce with northern Europe.
This innovation of a blockade of " deviation " by means of mine-
fields was thus in the first instance made possible by the inhumanity
of German commerce destruction by floating mines. It was apolo-
getically justified by the British as —
" an exceptional measure appropriate to the novel conditions of the
new naval warfare "
and —
" out of regard to the great interests entrusted to the British Navy, to
IN THE WAR 71
the safety of peaceful commerce on the High Seas and to the maintenance,
within the limits of international law of neutral trade."
Thus although at first sight one might have supposed Great
Britain and Germany had embarked on a war of reprisals that would
respect no law of God or man in pursuing the destruction of their
respective civilian populations and of any neutrals that got
in the way, yet professedly they were both fighting for the
Freedom of the Seas and of their native lands.
"Libertas et natale solum.
Fine words — I wonder where you stole 'em " :
the Americans might well say. But after all with their respec-
tive Ships of State in such dire peril British and Germans
were perhaps entitled to hoist American colours merely as a
ruse of war.
Meantime the British were making full use of their right under the
Declaration of London to add to the list of contraband so as to develop
their commercial blockade. There were in all during the war fifteen
proclamations for this purpose alone ; extending the list to two
hundred and thirty items, until practically all principal importations
to Germany were included. But in this first phase prior to the first
submarine campaign there were only three proclamations extending
the list to include — iron, copper, lead, rubber (29th October, 1914),
and sulphur, glycerine — conditional (21st September), and absolute
(23rd September). Foodstuffs, fuel, and fabrics could not as yet
be touched. An Order in Council (20th August, 1914), tried to evade
Arts. 33-35 of the Declaration so as to allow capture of conditional
contraband in " continuous transport," but this the United States
forced the British to withdraw (0. in C, 29th October, 1914) — a
very considerable concession to neutral commerce. This, however,
did little good to the Germans, who saw themselves cut off from
American war supplies which were fully and freely open to their
enemies. Nor had they any legal ground of complaint. They there-
fore had recourse to cutting at the source of supply in America
itself by instigating strikes and various forms of sabotage, a game
at which their stalking-horse, the Austrian Ambassador, was caught
out and sent home. This was an anticipation in an irregular " cut-
and-run " form of the future British cut-and-dried blockade '- at
72 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
source." And it had the disadvantage of all irregular raiding
blockades, of being specially offensive to the neutral.
Germany was by then mobilising not only its whole population
but their whole productivity and property. The rationing system
and the " Rathenau Plan " made further distinction between the
military and civil destination of neutral shipments absurd. The
British therefore made food contraband. The Germans thereupon
proclaimed (February 1915) a war zone in the Narrow Seas in
which all enemy shipping would be sunk at sight.
GERMAN SUBMARINE BLOCKADE — FIRST FORM
This first submarine campaign was logical and legal. Logical
because if the British were entitled and enabled to starve German
women and children the Germans had the right to do the same if
they could by British. Legal because the right of submarines to
sink at sight under international law could be sustained without
stretching any more points than had been strained by the British
in making rubber and food contraband. But it was none the less a
foolish and a futile move. Futile because British shipping had only
to disguise itself as neutral. And foolish because it was especially
obnoxious to Americans who had to use British shipping both for
passage and freight.
/The British did not retaliate in kind and no neutral ship was ever
sunk by a British mine or submarine. There was no need for it and
they knew a trick worth two of that. They let a test case go before
the Court of public opinion. The Lusitania steaming at half-speed
straight through the submarine cruising ground on the Irish coast
was incontinently sunk (May 1915). Over a hundred Americans
were drowned. The warnings given them before sailing, from
German sources, and the way the matter was handled by the
German Government and Press in no way mitigated the intense
indignation of American opinion. After much correspondence the
Germans were forced to renounce sinking at sight and therewith
lose the " sanction " of commerce destruction as a reprisal, so far
as the Narrow Seas were concerned. When three months later the
Arabic was sunk and American lives lost, the German Government
had to repudiate the submarine commander. Austria accepted
IN THE WAR 73
responsibility for the sinking of the Ancona and had to comply
with the conditions imposed on Germany. And the attack on the
Sussex, a Channel packet, brought war with America so near that
Germany had to accept and apply an even more stringent regulation
of submarine war without getting any relaxation in return of the
British blockade. In fact, one effect of the British blockade was so
to irritate Germany into so irritating America that the British could
continually screw the vice tighter.
BRITISH SUPER-BLOCKADE — FIRST FORMS
Says Mr. Churchill (The World Crisis, p. 296) :
" The first German U-boat campaign gave us our greatest assistance.
... It altered the whole position of our controversies with America.
A great relief became immediately apparent."
And Great Britain lost no time in taking advantage of the relief.
The Reprisals Order (nth March, 1915) was in fact a blockade as
irregular, though less immediately inhumane than that of the
Germans. The material provision of it was Section 3 that allowed
" deviation " to a British port of all neutral ships from or to all
neutral ports carrying goods owned by or destined for the enemy.
Such goods were not confiscated unless contraband, but were to be
compensated or continued to their consignee as the Prize Court
directed. The distinction between absolute and conditional contra-
band, disappeared, continuous voyage was again taken into account
and the burden of proof thrown on the neutral. (O. in C, 29th
October, 1915.) American interests were further invaded by
making cotton contraband (20th August, 1915), and a German effort
to make an incident of this for propaganda purposes was defeated
by using for the first seizure a French warship with the conciliating
name of Lafayette. But in spite of that the strain on American
patience was great. Thus Mr. Secretary Lane writes to Col. House
(5th May, 1915) as follows :
" You would be interested, I think, in hearing some of the discussion
around the Cabinet table. There isn't a man in the Cabinet who has a
drop of German blood in his veins, I guess. Two of us were born under
the British flag. I have two cousins in the British Army* and. Mrs. Lajie
74 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
has three. The most of us are Scotch in our ancestry, and yet each day
that we meet we boil over somewhat, at the foolish manner in which
England acts. Can it be that she is trying to take advantage of the war
to hamper our trade ? . . ." (The Intimate Papers of Colonel House :
Vol. I. Page 462.)
One consequence of the irregularity of this blockade was that
not only was Prize Law ignored but the Prize Court as an institution
was superseded. British judges always have held, and continued
during the Great War to hold, that the Prize Court administered the
principles of Prize Law and that executive Orders in Council or even
Acts of Parliament would not avail as against recognized rules of
international law. Decisions as to the destiny of detained vessels
and goods were accordingly settled out of Court by the Committee
of Blockade set up at the Foreign Office.
This proceeding, while it permitted a diplomatic elasticity in the
decisions, deprived the whole blockade of the last shred of inter-
national sanction. There was in fact a curious chassee-croisie in the
functions of the Admiralty and the Foreign Office. For while the
Admiralty, owing to its efficient intelligence system and the authority
of armed force, usurped the functions of the Office in foreign affairs,
the latter undertook the supervision of the blockade which had
become the dominant feature in our relations with neutrals. We
could have no better evidence of the profound effect on international
relations of an attempt to impose an economic blockade under
modern conditions of commerce.
At first sight the British blockade would seem to be a pretty
complete and quite coercive control of commerce between neutrals
and the enemy. But the necessity of conciliating American interests
was still imposing so much restraint, and the difficulty of proving
the real destination under modern trading conditions was so great,
that this first British deviation blockade was little more effective
than the first German destruction blockade. Under it the American
exports to Scandinavia and Holland trebled or quadrupled, whilst
the exports from these neutrals to Germany were even more swollen
with the addition of their home produce. (Misc., 1916, No. 15.)
Huge shipments of foodstuffs were consigned to small tradesmen or
even dock labourers in neutral ports. Yet only one in twenty of the
ships deviated could even be sent before a prize court. The British
IN THE WAR 75
Press clamoured for the proclamation and prosecution of a " real
blockade " against Germany. Such formal and old-fashioned block-
ades were as a matter of fact declared in African waters, in the
iEgean and Adriatic ; but they would have been utterly useless
in the North Sea. The British blockade, though it was not called a
blockade, was already far more effective than a formal and legal
blockade would have been.
Consequently the conclusion suggested by the relations of the two
belligerents with the United States in this first phase of the war is
that neither the sea power with cut-and-dried command of the Sea,
nor the sea power with a cut-and-run command can make so rigorous
a deviation blockade in the first case, or so ruthless a destruction
blockade in the second case as effectively to strangle and starve an
enemy, so long as there is an armed neutrality with important
interests involved whose intervention would win the war. And this
conclusion is of importance for the argument hereinafter advanced
that the future both of British belligerency and of British neutrality,
of British Command of the Seas and of American Freedom of the
Seas — of international sea law and of international world-warfare
all depend on the establishment or not of an all-in Armed Neutrality.
BRITISH SUPER BLOCKADE— LATER FORMS
We now come to the second phase of the sea war — that in which
belligerent necessity was the mother of further blockade inventions
and in which German " f rightfulness " in the case of the Sussex, and
in conspiracies within the borders of the United States, brought the
American people into a phase of benevolent neutrality that permitted
further screwing up of the blockade. For, by the autumn of 1916,
America had been brought into a benevolent neutrality towards the
British blockade that was comparable to that of Portugal at the
outbreak of war, and was more than half-way towards belligerency.
As the real difficulty between the British and American govern-
ments was that of reconciling the requirements of a war of exhaus-
tion with the rights of private neutrals to trade with the enemy under
domestic and international law, the remedy obviously was for the
belligerent public authority to substitute contractual arrangements
with the private neutral interests for those customary rights which
76 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
were no longer in line with the conditions of modern war. These
contracts for mutual convenience were not concluded between the
belligerent and neutral governments but between the blockading
authorities and associations ad hoc of neutral traders. The belligerent
Government could base such an interference with trade on no prin-
ciple of international law, while the neutral government could enforce
them by no provision of domestic law. The sanction under which
they were established and the penalty under which they were
enforced was an unrecognized but none the less rigorous blockade.
These arrangements belong, in fact, juristically to the same class as
the German notices not to embark in the Lusitania, or their notifi-
cations to firms to stop shipping contraband on pain of strikes or
sabotages. If the Americans accepted the one and were highly
angered by the other, it is because public opinion is a sounder and
a saner source and sanction for international law than historic
precedent and juristic principle.
These agreements were therefore not legitimate — they were not
born of a holy matrimony between diplomats and jurists, solemnized
in an international conference and registered in an international
code. Like all living law and Topsy, they "just growed." They
are none the less — indeed all the more — a most important innova-
tion in international law. For international law is a common law,
not a code, and it grows out of the stern tests of war, not out of
juristic textbooks.
A good detailed description of the forms and functionings of these
agreements can be found in the British official statement (CD.
8145 Misc. II. 1 91 6). They grew gradually in extent and effective-
ness ; but at this period began to assume a primary importance.
Very varied in character they fall broadly into three groups : (1)
Agreements with neutral importers and consignees under deposit
of a guarantee that the goods will not be passed on to the enemy.
The first of these was made with the Netherlands Overseas Trust,
an organization of neutral traders ; and others were later made
with similar Trusts in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Switzerland.
(2) Agreements with Shipping Companies not to carry " black "
goods nor deliver them to " black-listed " consignees. Such ships
then became " white ships " and were free from interference. (3)
Arrangements such as the " Skinner Scheme " under which neutral
IN THE WAR 77
supporters obtained a " Letter of Assurance " from the Contraband
Committee in London, which would relieve Shipping Companies of
risk in respect of such goods. Finally (4), a " rationing " of supplies
for neutral States on a basis of their normal necessities. This last —
which was a governmental action fundamentally/though not formally,
as it was not the subject of diplomatic negotiation and acceptance —
was the most effective and drastic of the lot. And when we find
that the working of this system was supervised by an immense
intelligence machine that checked and counter-checked it at every
point, so that for a factory to be " black-listed " by the British was
even more damaging to it than to be blown up by the Germans,
we recognize a new form of blockade.
" Blockade in the form in which it has been sanctioned in the past by
international law has ceased to exist." (Sir E. Richards, Some Problems
of the War," p. 10.)
This new form of blockade at source has taken its place in all future
wars of an all-in and all-out character. Sea power and air power
will be important in future not as in themselves setting up the
blockade, but as supplying the sanction for it.
THE NEW NAVAL WARFARE CAUSES AMERICAN MEDIATION
This transformation of a blockade from a cordon of warships to a
system of contracts, in which the penalty, namely, deviation or
destruction, is only the principal sanction, has greatly reduced the
ancient advantage of the superior sea power in being able to assert
a cut-and-dried command of the sea. Because, as the sanction for
a blockade at source, a cut-and-run command is as good — nay
better. Seeing that ruthless destruction of ship, cargo, and crew
by a raiding submarine or aeroplane is more a deterrent than
deviation to a port and prize court. And this conclusion is of import-
ance to the argument hereafter advanced that we can renounce now
without real loss our previous power of enforcing a cut-and-dried
blockade at will.
The extraordinary effectiveness under modern conditions of a
cut-and-run blockade as a means of pressure had not escaped the
Germans. A modern war that is fought by the whole people is lost
78 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
by moral discomfitures and discontents quite as much as by material
defeats. For achieving moral discomfiture economic blockade is
now a far more deadly weapon than it was a century ago when, as
Admiral Mahan tells us, it broke Napoleonism. Its defect is that
unless carried out with modern weapons, such as submarines and
aeroplanes and without moral restrictions, it is so cumbrous and
costly that it pretty nearly broke us before, as its advocates assume
it broke Kaiserism. In this winter of 1916-1917 Germany was
having the best of it in the field but was certainly having a bad time
in keeping the home fires burning. Germany was only drawing
10 per cent, of her necessaries from overseas. But the food shortage
was already so severe that only the docility and discipline of her
people and the break-through into fresh overland supplies from
Roumania and Russia saved the situation for another two years of
war. And it seems likely that any continental State will similarly
suceed in breaking the ring of economic blockade before being
reduced by it to surrender. An island State like Great Britain runs
greater risks from it. In this emergency Germany informed the
United States (October 1916) that unrestricted submarine warfare
would have to be renewed unless Great Britain made peace. This
was followed up by a German peace " offensive " (December 1916).
And it seems likely that the Germans were on this occasion using
their " sanction " of cut-and-run command of the sea and commerce
destruction, not so much to induce America to enforce the Freedom
of the Seas as against the British blockade, but rather to induce
America to mediate a negotiated peace. On their side the American
government and the bulk of the people were still as anxious to remain
at peace themselves as to restore it in Europe. President Wilson
accordingly asked the belligerents to state their war aims. The
Allies replied, frankly enough, that theirs were the defeat of
Germany. The German reply was much less intransigent, but no
more instructive.
As mediation was impossible in these conditions, President
Wilson tried to mobilize popular movements for peace by a proposal
(Senate message, 22nd January, 1917) for a — " Peace League "
under American auspices which should make and maintain " a
peace without victory," on a basis of free peoples and free seas. He
thus opened up what was the first and last opportunity of ending the
IN THE WAR 79
war with a real peace. For America was still pacific and impartial ;
besides being more powerful than ever as against war-wasted,
war-wearied and war-weakened Europe.
GERMAN SUBMARINE BLOCKADE AND AMERICA
But unhappily for mankind, the British and Prussian war machines
had by then taken charge. The German navalists interpreted the
President's movements as the vacillation of a visionary ; and, long
before they could have any effect on public opinion, unrestricted
submarine warfare was resumed by proclamation (January 1917).
American transatlantic traffic was to be restricted to one steamer a
week painted all the colours of the rainbow for identification.
Seeing the difficulty the British had had to reconcile flag-proud
America little by little to their " white ships " and " black lists," we
can understand how this German harlequinade was taken as an
insult added to injury by the Americans.
BRITISH WIRELESS BLOCKADE AND AMERICA
Moreover the British Admiralty had a shot in its locker which
it now fired with deadly effect. The British had extended the
Intelligence Service of their blockade to the ether — a curious
development with which one of the authors of these pages was
personally connected. The blockade did not at once cut off Germany
from all uncensored and uncoded communication with the outside
world by courier or cable. German commercial messages continued
to pour over the British controlled and tapped cables for many
months and provided useful evidence for the Prize Courts. But
political and military instructions and information had to be sent
by wireless and Britannia ruled the wireless waves. Their inter-
ception proved of the utmost importance when Germany proceeded
to use the upper air much as she used the under waters for ruthless
warfare.
Conspiracies of every sort in Asia, Africa, and America were
concocted and conducted by wireless correspondence. This was, of
course, concealed in the most scientific cyphers which concealed
again the most scientific codes. Despising the intelligence of an
80 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
enemy known to be normally uninterested in such intellectual
exercises, the Germans filled the ether with their most secret schemes.
But to be inexperienced is not necessarily to be inexpert, and the
interception and interruption of this correspondence was an oppor-
tunity for that intelligent improvisation that is a peculiar faculty
of the British.
The German wireless messages to the official and unofficial agents
abroad were soon being read in Whitehall more quickly and correctly
than in the Wilhelmstrasse. More than once the scratch staff of
British amateurs followed with amusement the wireless wranglings
of the German cypher experts trying to disentangle the knots in
which some urgent message had got tied by their complicated
devices — knots which the English had at once cut by the technical
methods and machines they had invented d I'improviste.
To these enjoyments the wireless blockaders added harrowing
excitements. For example, a German wireless correspondence with
the Secret Head of a great organization for raising a national revolt
in Persia was unravelled daily until the outbreak was clearly immi-
nent, when it disappeared behind an impenetrable cypher. Frantically
the Whitehall eavesdropper worked day and night to reopen the
keyhole. At last a happy guess based on a knowledge of German
psychology and Persian geography disclosed the fresh cypher and
the final plans. It was a matter of hours, but the counter mine was
prepared and sprung in time. The chief conspirator, a well-known
military attache^, shot himself, and Persia remained, " for the
duration," an Anglo-Russian dependency.
The same hard fate from the same hidden foe befell the Irish
rebellion. It was the ether blockade not the water blockade that
intercepted Casement's submarine and the Aude's cargo of arms.
And so, too, with the Moroccan risings and the Indian conspiracies.
While much that is obscure in the relations of the British govern-
ment to the last phase of Tsarism would become obvious if the
wireless blockade files of the German intrigues with the Tsarist
ministers were published.
This ether blockade had moreover its picturesque personal adven-
tures. A diplomat fretting in a sinecure at Lisbon and repeatedly
refused leave for active service, left incontinently in disgust at the
secret treaties. Applying for a naval commission he was appointed by
SAILING SHIP TORPEDOED BY SUBMARINE
(Imperial War Museum photo. Copyright reserved.)
IN THE WAR 81
the Admiralty one of the original organizers of this wireless
blockade. His previous chiefs demanded his dismissal, for the tin
gods are jealous gods. But England was by then indeed the " seat
of Mars," and in 1915, what Mars wanted " went " in Olympus.
So within a few weeks he was daily delivering to his former chief
the secret correspondence of his former German colleagues. The
sailors had certainly wiped the eye of the secretaries at their own
job. For instead of helplessly reporting the conspiracies to take
Portugal out of the war after they had come off, he now revealed
them as they came on. As the skill and scope of the wireless block-
ades increased, this scientific war of wits became as apparently
miraculous in its feats, as it was certainly momentous in its results.
For example, a series of numerals, daily extracted from the ether
of Macedonia without further indication of their source or system,
were disclosed as the instructions of the Bulgar General Staff, in
Bulgar words, coded into casual number groups, these latter
transformed by a cypher, which changed daily. And the expert
who solved the series of riddles had absolutely no adventitious
assistance — no " Rosetta stone " or clue of any sort. In fact
only one form of cypher-code proved insoluble, and what
that was the writer has no intention of divulging. Every Foreign
Office will be confident it is theirs, probably to their own eventual
confusion.
But enough — perhaps too much — has been said on this subject
in order to show in the first place that the British are capable of
developing their blockade under stress of war into forms more scien-
tific and zweckmdssig than a cordon of warships to catch cargo
steamers ; and to prove, in the second place, that secret diplomacy
will never be sound diplomacy. If it must be kept secret it is sure
not to be sound ; and it is all the more unsound that it can't be kept
secret. Which brings us back to the American situation, and one of
the most conspicuous cases that prove this last maxim. For in the
files of the wireless blockade was an intercepted official invitation
from the German Foreign Office to Mexico to ally herself with
Germany and " reconquer the lost territories of New Mexico,
Texas, and Arizona." This was made known to the American
public in the crisis of the resumption of unrestricted submarine
warfare.
82 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
The simultaneous and sinister stroke at the two pillars of American
national policy — Freedom of the Seas and the Monroe doctrine —
was decisive. America came into the war against Germany. And
we have made this revelation not only because it is essential to our
whole argument, but because we think that the credit of this great
service to civilization should be ascribed now — where it belongs —
to the Admiralty Intelligence Service and its amateur assistants.
We pay this tribute to the efficiency of the Admiralty in this region
of foreign relations all the more readily that we shall now have to
say hard things of their inertia in their own special responsibility
for the conduct of naval operations.
AMERICA ENTERS THE WAR
America's entry into the world-war found the fortunes of the
Western allies at their lowest ebb. On the Western land front the
opposing armies had reached a deadlock of immobile trench warfare.
The attempted allied break-through at the Dardanelles, in order to
open up the Black Sea, had failed. The subsequent attempt at a
flank attack from Salonica was futile. A Russian Fleet based on the
Crimea controlled the Black Sea unchallenged, for the German battle-
cruiser Goeben was too valuable to risk, and the small Turkish navy
was mostly obsolete. But the whole of this vital sea area was denied
to the Allies by Turkey's closing of the Straits. Munitions could not
be imported into Russia through the southern ice-free ports ; nor
could the urgently required Russian food and fuel supplies be
exported.
But though deadlock appeared to have been reached on the
Western land front and Eastern sea front, the position on the
Eastern land front and Western sea front was far different. The
Central Powers were breaking through the blockade on the East,
over-running Russia and Roumania, and penetrating Central Asia.
Their warships were breaking through the watch and ward in the
North Sea and raiding British coast towns. Yet these alarums
and excursions, though embarrassing, were unimportant in com-
parison with the cut-and-run command of the narrow seas obtained
by German submarines in the return to unrestricted commerce
destruction.
IN THE WAR 83
THE SUCCESS OF THE SUBMARINE BLOCKADE
Owing to the assumed necessity for concealing the truth from the
general public the full extent of the danger from the German sub-
marines has never been fully realized. For, during the war, the
public mind was fed only with poppy-cock and propaganda : while
to-day the ordinary man in the street, and his wife, are so dismayed
by the horrors of the war, so disillusioned as to its aims and so
disappointed in its results, that they desire to hear no more of it.
And as, to-morrow, we shall have a generation grown up that was
in the nursery when the great struggle raged, that only remembers
it as an interesting change in nursery diet, and that is already looking
back on its romantic or spectacular side rather than on its filthiness
and its failures, it would be as well to remind our fellow countrymen
of the dire peril to which they were brought by relying on their own
independent command of the sea under the new conditions of modern
naval warfare.
This is especially necessary at the present time when the post-war
reaction to an ancient but antiquated " divine right " to " Command
of the Seas " is causing the British governing class to revert to the
national naval policy pursued during the previous three hundred
years. These blue-blood and blue-water Bourbons, who have learnt
nothing and forgotten nothing, assume that during the Great War
the British Navy was strong enough to exercise sufficient Command
of the Seas to enforce the British blockade and ensure British security
and supplies. Whereas in real fact our security was impaired and our
supplies imperilled by German cut-and-run raids and commerce
destruction.
THE SUBMARINE SURPRISE
Though the submarine had long been invented and successfully
used, its real potentialities were unknown at the outbreak of war to
any naval staff in the world. The use of the submarine against
merchant shipping on a great scale had never been contemplated.
The earlier German efforts were in the nature of experiments. Un-
deterred by the risks to non-combatant and neutral persons and
84 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
property, and undisturbed by any scruples as to experimenting on
the merchant shipping of enemies and friends alike, the German
Naval Staff eventually found in its hand a weapon of greater potency
than all the Big Battalions and Big Berthas and other devilments
of modern war. If the German Naval Staff had realized the offensive
potentialities of their new weapon instead of relying on the defensive
power of an outnumbered surface " Fleet in Being," and if the
German High Command and Foreign Office had allowed the Naval
Staff to concentrate from the beginning on the development of un-
restricted submarine commerce destruction, supplying the necessary
support and materials, Germany would have won the war either
before it had provoked the United States to the point of entering it,
or before the United States could bring their latent strength to bear.
But the submarine was a new-fangled notion, as unpopular with
the Sea Lords in Germany as in Great Britain. Only a few unheeded
prophets, usually from amongst the younger naval officers, who
argued from close day-to-day experience with this new weapon and
were aided by the priceless asset of imagination, could challenge
the service routine and the respect due to seniors and foresee what
could be made of this weapon.
The first revelation was the distance at which the original sub-
marines built before the war could operate. Fortunately for us the
Germans did not know this any more than the British did. Other-
wise British naval superiority might well have been wiped out by
one swoop on one of the many occasions during the opening weeks
of the war when the whole Grand Fleet stopped engines at sea in
clear daylight to receive and despatch private mail. The Grand
Fleet, on which the whole success of the Allied Cause depended,
might again and again have met the same fate, owing to the same
failure in precaution, as did the flying squadron of armoured cruisers
Cressy, Hope and Aboukir.
As soon as this disquieting development was realized the channels
of the inland sea of Scapa Flow in the Orkneys, where was the
northern base of the Grand Fleet, were hurriedly blocked with the
sunken hulls of valuable and afterwards invaluable merchant ships
— the first indirect victims of the German submarines and of the
British horse-marines. Thereafter the Grand Fleet only emerged
on carefully policed and patrolled promenades that gave them
IN THE WAR 85
a more spectacular but less spirited command of the North Sea
than that of the German cruisers and submarines.
Few had realized the possibilities of the submarine as a mine-
layer until ships began to be sunk on the mine-fields laid by sub-
marines. The tactical possibilities open to submarines mounting
a gun for surface operations had not been dreamt of, until German
U-boats had shot merchant ships and, in one case, an armed sloop-
of-war, to pieces, and until a British submarine with a 6-inch gun
on an improvised mounting, had bombarded Turkish railway bridges
from the Sea of Marmora.
The final revelation was the immense distances of open ocean over
which a specially constructed submarine commerce destroyer or
blockade runner could operate. For example, the Germans sent
five submarines to American waters, which sank a minelayer,
damaged a battleship and destroyed fifty merchant vesssls there.
What may submarines not do in this way of blowing up stereotyped
strategic ideas in unexpected regions during another naval war ?
THE SUBMARINE TAKES THE OFFENSIVE
Great Britain and the Allies were thus early forced on to the
defensive by the German submarine campaign and, what was worse,
they were always a move behind. The initiative during the first
two and a half years of the war was with the U-boats. Their whole
campaign, indeed, was a surprise. And, if it was a surprise because
it was never expected that the law of nations at sea would be broken
in such a ruthless manner, there was some excuse for this lack of
foresight. For, since sailing-ships replaced slave-galleys, a common
feeling among sailors had created a common law for sea war with
certain rough rules of humane conduct, respected by the seamen of
all nations, men-of-warsmen and privateers alike. During all the
wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries attacks on com-
merce had been conducted under certain well-recognized restrictions
— the principal of which was that the normal method of taking prize
was to search and, if necessary, seize vessels ; then send them with
prize crew or escort into a home port to be regularly tried before a
Prize Court. If in exceptional circumstances a captured merchant
vessel had to be destroyed, her crew, and especially her passengers,
86 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
both recognized normally as non-combatants, had first to be removed
to a place of safety. But owing to technical difficulties this proved
to be impossible for a submarine, which can neither provide men for
a prize crew nor room for captives. It was therefore too readily
assumed by the Allies that submarines could not be used for com-
merce destruction. But the mistake being due to over-reliance on
others' respect for the regulations is not discreditable, and it is easy
to be wise after the event.
As for the neutrals, they could not have anticipated that no less
than seventeen hundred neutral merchant vessels would be sunk
during the course of the campaign by submarines and more than
two thousand of their sailors drowned or killed by explosions. For
in the history of naval war up to the twentieth century not a single
instance occurred of a neutral ship being destroyed on the High Seas.
There is no record of the destruction of a neutral ship at sea during
the Crimean War, the American Civil War, the Franco-Prussian
War, the Spanish- American War, or any of the minor wars of the
last century. We have mentioned the first occasion of such an
offence as occurring in the Russo-Japanese War. The German
prize code itself contained stringent regulations against the destruc-
tion even of enemy prizes before condemnation by a Prize Court,
except on the ground of dire military necessity. Nor was Germany
originally contemplating any such campaign of destruction against
neutral commerce. As evidence of this we may note that at the
beginning of the war Germany had only twenty-eight submarines,
of which ten were modern and might be considered suitable for long
sea voyages.
THE SUBMARINE AND NEUTRALS
The sufferings of the neutrals were indeed severe. Spain was, on
the whole, friendly to Germany ; but by June 1917 one-seventh of
the entire Spanish Mercantile Marine had been destroyed by German
submarines. By August 1918 one-fifth of the Spanish Marine had
been destroyed and more than one hundred Spanish sailors killed.
In answer to repeated Spanish protests, the German Government
offered safe conducts to selected Spanish ships ; on the condition
that they were not engaged in any trade that might help the
IN THE WAR 87
Allied cause. Whereupon the French Minister of Marine at once
issued an order that any Spanish ship sailing under such a permit
would be deemed as being in the service of Germany and liable to
capture.
Little Denmark never threatened Germany, nor was capable of
threatening her ; and until the new methods of blockade were im-
posed on neutrals and the Danish imports were rationed under the
modern interpretation of the doctrine of continuous voyage, the
Danish ports were of immense value to Germany for the supply of
many vital commodities. Yet by March 1918 the German sub-
marines had sunk 216 Danish ships and killed 234 Danish sailors ;
and many Danish ships were torpedoed while voyaging from Den-
mark to the Danish dependency, Iceland, and therefore outside the
war zone.
Norway suffered most from this new cut-and-run control of the
seas. At the outbreak of hostilities the Norwegian Mercantile
Marine ranked third of any country of Europe, and fourth in the
world. One-fifth of the population of this little country was depen-
dent upon the shipping industry. By the end of the war Norway
had lost 929 ships of a total tonnage of 1,240,000 and more than
1000 Norwegian sailors had been killed.
Two cases of what the new cut-and-run command of the sea may
mean to neutrals will be cited. On 23rd June, 1918, a German
submarine sunk in mid-ocean the Norwegian steamer Augvoldon.
Sixteen of her crew were never seen again. The remainder were
picked up after drifting about at sea in small lifeboats for eleven
days, by which time they had been reduced to eating seaweed and
their only drink was the rain-water they caught in their caps. In
August 1918 a submarine destroyed the Norwegian barque Eglinton
by gunfire without warning. The lifeboats in which the crew
endeavoured to escape were fired on and only one man sur-
vived. Ten years after the war the Germans agreed to pay
6,600,000 gold marks (£330,000) as compensation for the loss of
life and earning power of these 1000 Norwegian seamen — £350 per
man !
Now let us take the case of Sweden. Not only were the Swedes
not hostile to the German cause, but an immense trade was carried
on between Sweden and Germany throughout the war, especially
88 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
in foodstuffs and iron ore. For the British war vessels were unable
to exercise effective control in the Baltic. But by September 1917
120 Swedish ships had been sunk and 8 others captured or con-
fiscated, a total of 12 per cent, of the entire Swedish Mercantile
Marine. It would be as well if those who speak of neutrals
profiteering by their trade during the late war remembered these
facts.
The total losses of neutral merchant vessels by German sub-
marines or mines are as follows (Garner, International Law and
the World War, Vol. II, p. 278) :
Norway
Sweden
Spain
Greece
929 Denmark . . 172
124 Holland . . 328
83 United States . 20
60
Total 1716
THE SUBMARINE BLOCKADE — ITS RESULTS
Even so it must be remembered that the full effect of German
control of the sea by " cut-and-run " tactics was not only impeded
and postponed again and again by political difficulties, but was
prejudiced right through the campaign by serious geographical
disabilities. All Germany's overseas bases had been reduced or
masked at the very beginning of the war. And the British Islands,
lying like a great breakwater across the North Sea, commanded the
only exits of Germany to the ocean. This geographical situation
when fully exploited by mine-fields, as will be described later,
placed Germany at a fatal disadvantage in a campaign of commerce
destruction.
In any future war neither Britain nor her ally of the late war,
America, can count on similar advantages as against any eventual
enemy. The menace of cruisers either relying upon their disguises,
upon their speed, or upon their scouting aeroplanes, plus the menace
of ocean-going submarines with immense powers of endurance operat-
ing from overseas bases, plus the menace of aeroplanes and flying-
boats with an ever-increasing range of action, will combine to make
a massacre of merchant shipping, belligerent or neutral, far surpass-
ing anything experienced in the years 1914-1918. Provided, of
IN THE WAR 89
course, the military advantages of disregarding the old rules of
blockade are held to outweigh the political disadvantages.
The Germans also saw good reasons for respecting, at first, the
regulations of sea law. For six months of 1915 they had held their
hands for political reasons as already related, and it was not until
October of the same year that Germany resumed active operations.
The sinking of Allied and neutral ships promptly rose to 276,000 tons
a month. As more submarines were placed in commission the figure
of Allied and neutral losses of merchant tonnage increased steadily
from 181 ships sunk in the month of January 1917, representing a
total tonnage of 298,000 — to 259 vessels in February with a tonnage
of 468,000, then to 325 ships in March with a tonnage of 500,000,
and so to the record sinkings of April of 423 Allied and neutral
merchant ships of a total tonnage of 849,000. And with that the
Allied fortunes of war reached the low-water mark of their lowest
ebb.
By that time only six million tons of shipping was available for
the whole of the trade and supplies of the United Kingdom. The
remainder of Britain's merchant fleet of ships, the greatest in the
world, had been commandeered as auxiliary cruisers, or were em-
ployed as transports and on miscellaneous naval and military
service, or had been sunk and damaged, or were carrying on essential
trades in distant waters. The German Staff had reckoned that if
British and neutral shipping could be sunk at the rate of 600,000
tons a month Germany would win the war. Nor was this an
illusion, like so many of the calculations of these all too logical
war-lords.
Owing to the reduction of the available merchant shipping, Allied
and neutral, the Germans — using at any one time only 30 submarines
out of a total number of U-boats in active commission of only 140,
when at their highest (October 1917) — more nearly reduced the Allies
by sea than ever they did by land. Had any of their land offensives
occupied Paris the war would have gone on. Could it have gone on
if their sea offensive had invested London ? And these facts,
though they may not be known to the general public, have not
escaped the notice of naval experts all over the world.
From first to last German submarines sank 11,153,506 tons of
Allied merchant shipping and nearly paralysed the whole Allied
go COMMAND OF THE SEAS
war effort. They cost Great Britain 40 per cent, of her mercantile
marine. The entry of America into the war that removed all diplo-
matic restrictions from the British cut-and-dried blockade removed
all humanitarian restraint from the German cut-and-run blockade.
Nor was this submarine commerce destruction mere blind brutality.
Once the neutrals were rationed, once the new methods of sea control
by bunkering restrictions, black lists, permits, etc., had been put
into force, every ton of merchant shipping sunk was a German
bullet that found its billet. Though more recklessly inhuman the
German blockade was no more ruthlessly inhumane than the
British.
" The important thing," says General Ludendorff, " was to sink
as much shipping as possible " (War Memories, p. 223). For every
ship sunk, enemy or neutral, was a direct loss to the Allied cause
and weakened the advantage of the cut-and-dried command of the
sea. No matter that the crews of German submarines perished in-
evitably after a few voyages — 187 were lost altogether — and that
the civilian crews of their victims perished even more inhumanly —
many thousands in all. No attempt could be made to ensure the
safety of passengers and peaceful merchant seamen ; nor was it
attempted. Ships were sunk hundreds of miles from land in heavy
weather and their passengers and crews, women, children, aged,
sick, wounded, nurses, clergy, and other non-combatants, were left
to take their chance in open boats.
It may be said that these deeds can never be repeated. But the
history of war shows that no new weapon that has proved its success
can be permanently prohibited. Poison gas, the bombardment of
unfortified towns, the dropping of bombs from the air on non-
combatants, have all been prohibited from time to time by inter-
national law. Not only were poison gas and aeroplane bombs used
in the late war, but every Great Power to-day — with the exception
of Germany, which is still in a penalised position — is preparing to
use them again if required.
That flower of chivalry, Bayard, in his day, gave a lead to the
civilized conscience of his world by declaring firearms to be bar-
barous weapons. The man who used gunpowder was to Bayard a
criminal and beyond the pale. He allowed no quarter to be given
to captured musketeers, though most chivalrous in his treatment
IN THE WAR 91
of the armoured knights and bowmen who fell into his hands. But
in a later age we find Shakespeare laughing at these scruples in his
gallant who vowed —
" That it was great pity, so it was,
This villanous saltpetre should be digged
From out the bowels of the innocent earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed
So cowardly ; — and but for these vile guns
He would himself have been a soldier.'"
Henry IV, Act i. sc. 3.
War is war, and from age to age it gets worse and worse in its
weapons. What should we have thought of an American for ex-
ample if he had said that but for these vile aeroplanes or submarines
he would himself have been a soldier ? Fortunately the Americans
took a different view of their responsibilities to the human race.
The inhumanity of submarine warfare brought them into the war —
so that such crimes might the sooner cease.
AMERICA AS AN ALLY — WHY IT BEGAN
Every unbiased observer of the history of America's interven-
tion will agree that America did not enter the war until its inter-
national ideals were involved as deeply as its national interests.
For by March 1917 thirteen American ships had been attacked by
German submarines, of which twelve had been destroyed. Merchant
ships sunk by mines brought the United States losses up to twenty
before the date of intervention.
If we compare this with Great Britain's experience during the
Russo-Japanese war, already reviewed in Chapter I, we must con-
clude that the British, if they had been suffering as neutrals to the
extent the Americans were, would not so long have tolerated such
nterference with their trade and traditions. Nor will the Americans
when they have an independent command of the sea be so patient
either of a British cut-and-dried blockade or of the " cut-and-run "
blockade of a secondary naval power.
President Wilson was able adequately to voice the view of the
average American that he was going to war to make peace, and that
the American army was to " police " Europe — first by beating the
92 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
Central Powers and then by restoring the social order and the
organization of civilization in Europe. For this high purpose
Americans gave their men, their minds and their money generously
to the war. And if the vile infection of war afterwards vitiated
their idealist view and obscured their international vision by the
usual vulgarities and vices of nationalism in war fever, this disease
never affected the moral instinct of the people as a whole as
drastically and deeply as it did the British — a people that had
seen three more years of war and suffered thirty times greater
losses.
By 1918, the American reinforcements were being safely trans-
ported in thousands across the Atlantic by British sea-power
through the submarine blockade. French ports and railways to
the front were being converted into American, and became a land
extension of the Anglo-American sea lines of communication.
America had to entrust her sons by the hundred thousand to
British transports protected by British warships against the in-
sidious peril of the submarine. America had to entrust her war-
ships to the strategic dispositions and the tactical disposal of British
admirals.
The British, on their side, had to make material sacrifices to
secure these American reinforcements. During the year August
1916-August 1917 the British had lost over three million tons of
merchant shipping, and had to provide a similar amount for the
sole use of their allies, thus leaving only 38 per cent, of their remain-
ing tonnage for their own use. In order to ship and supply the
half-million American troops transported to France, a million tons
of imports into England had to be renounced. This meant that in
1918 the imports of cereals were reduced by a third. Food Control
was the contribution of the British public to the American campaign
in France. But the British tightened their belts without a murmur.
The Americans put themselves under the orders of the British
without a moment's hesitation. So close was the confidence and
co-operation between these two peoples in pursuit of their high
purpose.
That high purpose — the establishment of peace — is not yet
achieved. Cannot the confidence and co-operation be in some
measure restored ?
IN THE WAR 93
AMERICA AS AN ALLY— WHAT IT MEANT
There is a tendency to-day to measure America's contribution to
the Allied cause by the military contribution to the Land front and
the financial assistance to the Allies. This is erroneous. While not
belittling in any way the effect of the American barrage of dollars
and dough-boys it must be remembered that they did no more than
close up gaps in the Allied Fronts, counterbalance the defection of
Russia and compensate the diminution of British resources. The
land fronts might have been held, with some serious withdrawals,
even without the American reinforcements. But the sea front could
not have been held indefinitely in the unequal war of surface shipping
against submarines. If the submarine campaign had not been
counteracted the Allies could not have forced a decision on land
before the German blockade had, possibly decisively, reduced the
British power of resistance.
As it was, instead of Germany blockading Great Britain into
defeat, the reinforcement of American sea power and the removal
of American restrictions on the blockade enabled Great Britain to
blockade Germany effectively for more than a year before American
troops took their place on the land front. America threw herself
into the gaps she had kept open in the blockade and closed them
with an embargo and other belligerent measures. The world war
was won by American sea power associating itself with British sea
power. Peace for the world can be won in the same way.
AMERICA AS AN ALLY — HOW IT WORKED
This association, close as it was, never became an " entangling
alliance." Indeed, it was almost too informal and unformulated.
Though it had been in prospect for some months no preliminary
preparation for it was made. One of the present writers found that
he had a part to play in such preparation.
Mr. Lloyd George showed certain valuable qualities during the
war. Not the least of these was his distrust of the expert advice of
Admirals, Generals and other highly placed professional war-makers.
The hold that Mr. Lloyd George still has on the hearts of his
94 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
countrymen is due to their instinctive appreciation that the war
might not have been won if the initiative of amateurs like him had
not overcome the inertia of the military and naval authorities. The
" Frocks ", so bitterly abused by professional soldiers of the type of
Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, were the leaders of the New armies.
And allied with these New army and navy men were the younger
professional soldiers and sailors.
Mr. Lloyd George took every opportunity of picking up " pointers"
from any of these amateurs or their professional allies. Addressing
himself to one of the younger British naval officers, whose sugges-
tions and ideas for a more vigorous counter-offensive against the
German submarines, fleet, and naval bases had rendered him
thoroughly unpopular with the Board of Admiralty, he asked for
some acid test that could be applied to the supposedly voluminous
and carefully prepared plans for every possible contingency that he
was told existed in the pigeon-holes of the British Admiralty. And
this was not from any doubts of his own. For all the British pro-
fessionals at the War Office seemed to be afraid that at the rate we
were going the Admirals would lose the war before the Generals
could.
The amateur " Admiral " in reply suggested that the Prime
Minister should as a test case call for the plans for the co-operation
of the American Navy in the long-expected event of American inter-
vention on the side of the Allies.
None existed.
Nor did the Board of Admiralty and the so-called War Staff,
immersed in the day-to-day routine of the war, prepare any such
plan until Mr. Lloyd George's probe had proved their non-existence.
But thereafter, American intervention being imminent, a special
division of the war staff was formed. A small group of the more
rebellious of the sea-going critics were ensconced by day in bedrooms
of the Admiralty that were being used at night by the Sea Lords
for much-needed repose. This section was first named the " Offen-
sive Division of Operations " ; and with America's entry into the
war Admiral Sims' staff made contact with this new division. One
of the junior colleagues of the chief American naval liaison officer
was asked by the Washington Navy Department why it was called
the " Offensive Division." He said the reason undoubtedly was
IN THE WAR 95
that it was so offensive to the senior Admirals. When the latter
had become reconciled, the Department came to be called the Plans
Division, because its job was to make plans for the future, and also
because it was hoped the German General Staff, when they heard
of it in due course, would confuse it with the harmless hydro-
geographical or chart-making section.
The Plans Division differed from every other Department of the
Admiralty in that it had no concern with immediate events. Its
function was to think at least a month ahead and, if possible, six
months or more ahead. And students of war will recognize in this
little division the first beginnings of a real Naval General Staff on
modern lines.
The coming of the first few American officers to London instilled
a new vitality into the naval campaign. Fresh minds, with new
ideas and with a different outlook, were of far greater value than
the reinforcing American battleships which, owing to new weapons
and ways of naval warfare, never fired a gun in action. The Ameri-
can Navy had watched the war from a revealing perspective and,
as onlookers, had seen more of the game than those scuffling in the
scrum. They showed great tact — but lost no time — in pointing
out the proper moves. Furthermore, the brains of the American
naval experts in the planning of a campaign were not measured by
the gold lace round their caps. And it was far easier to suppress a
valuable new idea voiced by a British Admiral than by an American
Lieutenant.
An example may be useful. One of the most successful weapons
used against the submarine was the depth charge. This is another
form of the water-bomb, now at the disposal of the conquering aero-
plane. Released from a swiftly moving surface vessel over the
supposed position of a submerged U-boat it exploded at a certain
depth ; and if it did not shake the submarine to pieces, certainly
shattered the nerves of her crew. Consequently a destroyer con-
voying merchant ships in the Western Channel, where the bulk of
the sinkings took place, was really doing more vital work than a
whole division of soldiers in Europe. But these swift little craft at
first only carried four depth charges. They would escort important
merchant ships three days out and then rendezvous with eastern-
bound vessels from the United States and bring them in. If on the
96 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
first or second of every six days at sea a submarine showed herself,
the commander would hesitate to drop all his four depth charges
and thus render himself comparatively helpless for the remainder
of the expedition.
The destroyer captains themselves suggested that the after
torpedo-tubes should be removed and thirty or more depth charges
carried instead, just as the mine-laying destroyers carried their
mines. The Board of Admiralty, obsessed with the fixed idea of
another battle-fleet action, and with the illusion that the destroyers
in the Western Channel could be made available for a sea battle in
the North Sea ; and oblivious to the fact that only twenty-four
hours would be required to replace the extra depth charges with
the original torpedo-tubes, officially rejected the plan. This set-
back was made known to the first Americans to arrive in London.
They immediately cabled Washington and an instant decision was
taken to provide all the American destroyers preparing to reinforce
the British destroyers in the Western Channel with extra depth
charges as proposed. And they were thoughtful enough to telegraph
this decision back to the Admiralty. The official decision of the
British Board was reversed.
The first contribution of this collaboration between British and
Americans was the despatch of their destroyers to assist in convoy-
ing ships in the Western approaches to the Channel. First based on
Queenstown they came under the orders of the late Admiral Sir
Lewis Bayly. Gradually increasing in numbers the American
flotillas, working from Queenstown and Plymouth, fitted into their
places in the naval British dispositions as if they had been part of
the Royal Navy. At Gibraltar there were twice as many American
men-of-war controlling the Western Mediterranean and its Atlantic
approaches as British.
At Gibraltar, at Queenstown and with the Grand Fleet, where an
American battleship division formed an insurance against any
possible risk in any future fleet action against the German High Sea
Fleet, the Americans everywhere were under British command.
Though the third Navy in the world and the second in the Allied
cause, the American fleet assumed, voluntarily, a subordinate
position, and acted under British orders with an absence of
friction, jealousy, or any other kind of ill-feeling. What this means
IN THE WAR 97
in war time can only be realized by those who suffered from less
unselfish comrades, as who did not ; and the self-abnegation of the
Americans will never be forgotten by all those who served with
them.
Throughout the remainder of the war the American and British
seamen revived the spirit of the sea-captains whom Nelson called his
Band of Brothers. Every American naval secret, all the American
resources, mental and material, were placed unreservedly at the
disposal of the British Admiralty. We on our part disclosed our
most cherished technical inventions to the Americans. The con-
fidence between the two navies was only equalled by their
co-operation.
Further advantages to the sea campaign from America's inter-
vention were scarcely less important. The United States harbours
became available, not only for Allied warships, but for the assembly
of the convoys. The American engineers produced, with great
rapidity, immense quantities of efficient mines.
In the great mine-field laid out between the Orkneys and the
Norwegian coast, the American navy, showing a proper sailorly
superiority to the out-of-date regulations of war of which it had
lately been the defence, itself laid fifty-seven thousand moored
mines. The British contribution was only thirteen thousand mines.
And though this great mine-field, stretching across the North Sea,
was scarcely completed before the Armistice, yet the preliminary
sowings had a double effect. They undoubtedly made it more
difficult for either submarines, swift destroyers and light cruisers,
or disguised, heavily-armed raiders to escape from the German
harbours into the Atlantic. And by rigidly restricting neutral
merchant shipping to certain well-defined and narrow channels they
made the control of the sea-routes to Germany absolute.
From that time forward, no neutral merchant ship, even if she
escaped bunker control, black lists, export restrictions and search
in harbours could, without an Allied permit, hope to reach a port
in a rationed neutral country. Which final denial of all neutral
rights at sea was another contribution of America. And if America
could thus throw overboard her whole traditional policy of Freedom
of the Sea and her favourite formulae of sea law in order to prosecute
peace by a belligerent alliance with Great Britain, is it too much to
G
98 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
hope that America may now be willing to prosecute peace, in pursuit
of her traditional policy, by an armed neutrality with Great Britain ?
Allies in wartime usually quarrel during the campaign. The
quarrels of these two allied peoples in arms only commenced long
after it was over. Cannot these differences now be dispelled as a
first step towards the peace both peoples desire ? For if Anglo-
American association was a decisive factor in the war, in peace it
would be an even more determining factor.
AMERICA AS AN ALLY — HOW IT WAS WASTED
On the immediate political and military results it is unnecessary
to dilate in this book. But it is impossible to overestimate the
effects of this complete control of all the seas of the world, outside
the Baltic and the Black Sea, exercised by the British and American
Navies in combination.
The entry of America into the war could have restored the
offensive at sea ; for, with a few notable exceptions, the British,
French, and Italian Navies had been early thrown on the defensive.
At the commencement, owing to a false conception of modern navy
strategy, they had voluntarily adopted this role and maintained it
till the end. The two exceptions were the daring raid on the German
submarine bases at Zeebrugge and Ostend, and the determined
offensive to force the Dardanelles by combined military and naval
action. The late Admiral-of-the-Fleet Lord Fisher, when called
to the Admiralty, had indeed set to work single-handed, as was his
way, to plan a British naval offensive into the Baltic, which was to
concentrate against points on the coast of Pomerania in combination
with Russian troops. Unfortunately the Dardanelles campaign
used up both the military resources and the naval reserves destined
for this service in the Baltic. And when, consequently, Lord Fisher
resigned, he took with him in his head his Baltic plans. His avenue
of attack on Germany was never even explored.
The allied action against the submarines was purely and passively
defensive. It relied on makeshifts and sheer mass. The German
submarine service absorbed some ten thousand men and some
thirty submarines at sea at a time ; against which, by the end of the
war, nearly four thousand surface vessels, great and small, from
IN THE WAR 99
convoy cruisers to mine-sweepers and including old and new torpedo-
boat destroyers, armed trawlers, yachts, motor-launches, fishing
drifters, disguised and armed merchant vessels, known as " Q "
ships, and the like — employing perhaps one million men, were
engaged in passive defence. There were in addition the immobile
defences — mine-fields, nets, shore batteries of cannon, booms on the
rivers with electric apparatus — all of which required constant surface
supervision.
The convoys of merchant ships, escorted by armed vessels, the
merchant vessels themselves defensively armed, the mine-layers,
even the British submarines lying in wait submerged for a chance to
fire a torpedo at an unsuspecting U-boat recharging her accum-
ulators on the surface — all were forced into hated inactivity waiting
for the blow to fall in order to deliver the counter-stroke.
The Germans lost in all 187 submarines in action or by accident.
Those lost in action were accounted for as follows : by mines and
nets, 42 ; by depth charges, 35 ; by gunfire, 24 ; by submarines,
20 ; by ramming 18 ; by air attacks, 7. From which it is evident
that, even in the last war, the fleets and flotillas of surface shipping
aided by systematic air scouting accounted for little more than did
the submarines and mines. And when the tonnage and cost of
the surface defence is compared with that of the mine, submarine,
and aeroplane defence, its comparative ineffectiveness becomes
glaringly apparent.
Mine and net defence was considerably developed in the later
phases of the war. For its passivity appealed to authorities who
had by then lost most of their initiative and had never had much
imagination. But its offensive defensive possibilities were never
properly explored.
With great skill and gallantry, under cover of darkness or in fog,
hundreds of mines were laid in the Heligoland Bight itself in an
attempt to prevent the Germans from putting to sea at all. But the
suggested strategy of holding the mine-fields with surface ships in
superior force and preventing the German mine-sweeper from clear-
ing the way for the exit of the U-boat was never followed up.
The great barrage across the Straits of Dover, lighted at night,
and strongly patrolled was at the end effective. But even
this was a passive defence. If one complete mine-field had
200 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
been laid across the Heligoland Bight and another across the
entrance to the Baltic, and both had been held by our superior force,
surface and submarine, conditions of fighting similar to those of
trench warfare on land would have resulted. There would have been
heavy losses ; but the German surface warships would have been
brought to action and the German submarine campaign brought to
nought.
Nor were even the possibilities of novel surface craft fully
explored. For example, small coastal motor-boats, their propellers
driven by aeroplane engines, giving them a speed of forty miles an
hour as they half rose out of the water, and able to launch and run
torpedoes, were designed, built, and successfully experimented with.
Their special purpose was to run over the sandbanks at the entrance
to the Jade River at high water and attack and destroy the " Ready "
squadron of the German Fleet lying there at its moorings. But
they were never allowed to be used ; so, after some months, the
Germans, getting wind of them, prevented the exploit for ever by
driving stakes and sinking concrete blocks across the shallow water
channels they had trustingly left open.
Erskine Childers, executed as a rebel by the Irish Free State
Government, was the heart and soul of this projected enterprise.
He would have led it, for he had, before the war, sailed his cutter
through the " Sands " and channels among the Frisian Isles, during
the war had scouted them from aeroplanes, and had the answers to
their riddles. Had he been allowed to strike this blow for the
" Freedom of the Lesser Nations," including his beloved Ireland,
his name would be on the roll of our national naval heroes. One of
the present writers, knowing of these facts and of Childers' other
services to a common Empire, had the honour of raising a solitary
voice in the British Parliament in praise of a brave gentleman and
in vain entreaty to his Government to claim his life from the firing
squad.
Yet another novel idea for an offensive failed to penetrate the
defences of authority. With the stimulus of Admiral Fisher's short
regime at the Admiralty great steel and concrete towers were
ordered. Floating and capable of being towed, they could, by the
flooding of tanks, be sunk on sandbanks, leaving exposed a heavily
armoured turret, with a powerful gun, and searchlights. The
IN THE WAR 101
intention was to place these fixed forts at convenient spots in the
Heligoland Bight, there to harass and annoy any ship leaving or
entering the German naval ports. With their outlying pickets of
submarines and supporting mine-fields, they could only have been
reduced by a regular expedition ; which in turn would have brought
on a destroyer, cruiser, and finally, a battleship action. But so
inert became the strategy of the passive defence that their final
destination was to reinforce, with electrical apparatus in their
interior, the barrage across the English Channel in order to prevent
destroyer raids from Zeebrugge or German submarines making the
passage through the Straits of Dover. Fortunately the Armistice
came in time to prevent an occupation of the Narrow Seas by these
land fortresses that might have set up so many Maltas and Gibraltars
in the Narrow Seas between England and France.
Again, if use had been made of aircraft to bomb the shipyards
where the German submarines were being built, the war would have
been taken into the enemy's camp. Raids with landing parties on
the hostile coasts, the disembarkation places defended by simul-
taneously laid parallel mine-fields, would have kept all Germany
" on the jump." These and many other " offensive " plans were
considered, argued, shown to be realizable — and rejected. Only the
Zeebrugge raid, planned in one of the " offensive " bedrooms referred
to above, was carried through. The effect on the enemy was only
equalled by the encouragement it gave to ourselves. But orthodox
naval opinion was not reconciled to it by its sensational success and
showed that it was not. One way it showed it was by all the more
resolutely rejecting plans for similar exploits.
There was some excuse for refusing such plans before the entry of
America. But with American intervention the naval force available
became so overwhelming that some risk might have been run and
some opportunity of naval distinction offered to our American
associates in order to shorten a war that by its very length was
causing illimitable losses to ourselves and Europe. Losses from
which the world is only now slowly and painfully recovering.
To its credit it must be said that the American Higher Command
was perfectly willing to play its part in the offensive operations
which all the sailors of all the allied and associated navies were
eager to undertake. But the over-cautious conduct of the naval
102 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
war and the over-centralized control which hampered the use of the
British Navy from the beginning of the war spread like a blight
over all the sailors at sea. Not even American audacity and aggres-
siveness could avail against it. Consequently so far as the sea war
was concerned full advantage was not taken of the welcome addition
of strength from America ; and no American man-of-war was able
to fire a shot against an enemy other than a submarine.
THE NEW NAVAL WARFARE AND THE OLD
The last war was muddled through to victory. If it were the last
war this would be a matter only of interest to the historian. But the
continued expenditure on armaments by all the great nations of the
world, other than Germany — which is fortunate in being forcibly
disarmed by the Peace Treaty — makes it necessary that the lessons
of the last war be learned by the man in the street as well as by the
man in the study. For the street is going to be as unsafe as the
study in the next war. And the trenches may be safer than street
or study.
What is, then, the lesson of this last war that we think should be
learnt ? Just this. That as the weapons of naval warfare have
changed so must we change the principles of our naval policy.
The British doctrine of command of the seas by cruisers is a
legacy from the days of sail. In the Napoleonic Continental Wars,
before them, in the Colonial Wars against France, before them again,
in the fight for command of the sea with Holland and Spain, the
British pursued the same strategy as in the Great War — but in the
Great War it failed to work. A cruiser fleet of sailing frigates, with
command of the sea, could ensure the safety of the commerce of its
nationals and of neutrals, and still respect the old rules of belligerency
and neutrality. The opposing frigates and privateers, it is true, did
what they could to interfere with the sea-borne trade ; but commerce
and communications in sailing cargo ships could be successfully
maintained, once command of the sea was secured. Because, as
there were no mines, torpedoes, submarines or aeroplanes to prevent
a close blockade of hostile ports, these ports could not only be closed
up for mercantile purposes, but could be closed down as bases from
which frigates and privateers could prosecute commerce destruction
IN THE WAR 103
on the trade routes. Moreover the volume of sea-borne trade itself
was far less and commerce raiders were restricted to cruises of about
six weeks at sea by their water supply.
In those days commerce destroying sailing frigates or privateers
had only a few knots' excess of speed over the merchant ship. So
a chase was a long business. Nightfall, thick weather, a slant of
wind, often meant the escape of the quarry. Furthermore, the
sailing ships driven by the winds and currents were scattered over
the vast surface of the sea, and a raiding frigate or privateer operat-
ing on the trade routes might not sight a prize during her whole
cruise. Should she wish to make sure of a prize she would have to
hover in certain narrow areas of the sea through which trade had to
pass. Vessels crossing the great oceans were compelled to make
certain land falls ; and here, or in those other areas known as the
" nodal points," was where the commerce destroyers could expect to
reap a harvest. Examples are the Straits of Dover and Gibraltar,
the Skagerrack commanding the entrance to the Baltic, the Cape
of Good Hope, the Horn, the " Soundings " in the western part of
the English Channel, Cape St. Vincent, Cape San Roque in Brazil,
Point de Galle in Ceylon, the Straits of Malacca, the Windward and
other passages in the West Indies giving access to the Caribbean
Sea, and so on. The British frigates, cruising in these waters, sup-
ported where necessary by ships-of-the-line, could visit and search
all merchant ships, capture the prizes to which they were entitled,
and deny such areas of advantage to their opponents.
But steam and other modern inventions greatly modified this
state of affairs and submarines with aeroplanes have revolutionised
it. Nowadays a merchant vessel sighted by a steam cruiser has no
chance of escape unless succoured by a friendly warship. The
average merchant vessel carrying the bulk of the trade to-day, has
a sea speed of nine to twelve knots. The fastest liners at full speed
can only cover twenty-five sea miles in an hour. The modern cruiser
or destroyer has a speed of thirty to thirty-five knots. Moreover, the
cruiser can now carry an aeroplane to scout at one hundred miles
an hour and detect, detain or destroy merchant shipping, communi-
cating with her mother ship by radio. At night the warship
has powerful searchlights and its guns can engage with success
at a range of seven miles. The old privateer, after slowly
104 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
overhauling an intended prize, could only begin shooting at ranges
up to a mile. ^
Furthermore, there was not very much difference in construction
between a stout merchant ship and a frigate. Some of the sailing
East Indiamen were so powerfully armed as to be enabled to stand
up in open fight to a frigate ; and on occasions did so with success.
No ordinary merchant ship can fly from or fight with even a small
modern cruiser, for her thin plates and wooden superstructures are
very vulnerable to gunfire, while her frames are so light that even
the largest liner cannot carry a heavier gun than one of 6-inch
calibre.
COMMERCE DESTRUCTION BY GERMAN CRUISERS
At the beginning of the last war, Germany had four small cruisers,
armed with 4-inch guns actually engaged in commerce destruction
on the trade routes. The German China squadron under Admiral
Count von Spee, consisting of two heavy cruisers and some lighter
vessels, was kept together as a tactical unit and trade attack was
for it only of secondary importance. But these four independent
light cruisers sank two hundred thousand tons of British shipping
and thirty thousand tons of allied shipping before they were accounted
for. And they did this at a time when the British Navy List showed
one hundred and thirty cruisers, other than the battle cruisers.
There were also a number of Japanese, French and Russian cruisers
available for the defence of trade. Not counting cruisers with the
battle fleets, there were operating on the trade routes at the beginning
of the war, or shortly afterwards, one hundred and four allied cruisers.
At one time seventy warships were engaged in searching for the
Emden alone, or patrolling certain areas where she might appear.
As the war went on the disproportion between surface cut-and-dried
defensive and cut-and-run offensive increased. A few British cruisers
were lost in action or by submarine mines, but forty new ones were
added to the British Fleet before the Armistice. Seventy-five large
British passenger liners were commissioned as warships, armed and
used as cruisers. This immense preponderance of naval force was
all available to control the trade routes in order to deny their use
to the enemy for his commerce and to prevent raids upon our own.
IN THE WAR 105
With the clever trapping of the squadron under Admiral von
Spee and the hunting down of the other German regular warships
outside European waters, the Allies supposed that their troubles
were at an end ; but they were soon disillusioned. The submarine
war on commerce was not the only surprise
Three German disguised cruisers escaped into the Atlantic,
through gaps in the water and wireless blockade. They sank two
hundred and fifty thousand tons of British shipping and thirty-nine
thousand tons of Allied shipping. An even more astonishing and
alarming feat was that all succeeded in returning to German ports.
One of them, the Wolf, laid mines off Bombay and off Australian
ports, in addition to acting as a commerce destroyer on the high
seas.
As this method of attacking trade will certainly be used again
until superseded by something more serious, it is worth while
describing briefly the Wolf and her operations. She may be taken
as the present-day successor of the privateer. The old-style privateer
was a fast sailing ship, specially armed and equipped, and often a
former merchant ship to whom letters of marque were issued by her
Government. She was not a corsair originally, but a sort of special
constable for sea police duties. Her operations were legal, and she
was bound by the same rules of war as the regularly commissioned
naval ships. The difference between the French privateer of the
Napoleonic wars and the German commerce destroyer of the Great
War was that the privateer cruised for profit and was commissioned
as a business venture.
The Wolf, and her sister ships, were, to outward appearance,
peaceable neutral tramp steamers, but they carried hidden guns of
heavy calibre which could be unmasked when required. The Wolf
kept the seas for fifteen months, touching no port or inhabited shore.
She cruised in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. During her
operations she captured a Spanish steamer, the Ignotz Mendi, with a
cargo of coal. She kept her as a collier, replenishing her own bunkers
from the captured coal in sheltered waters among uninhabited islands
or coral reefs ; and to her she transferred a number of the prisoners
taken, keeping others on board herself. She endeavoured to bring
this ship, with her unhappy captives, including the Spanish captain
and crew, to Germany. Fortunately for the prisoners, the captured
106 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
ship ran ashore at Skager in Denmark, during thick weather, almost
within sight of Germany. The Danes interned the ship and her crew
and released the prisoners. The Wolf herself returned to Kiel in
safety. She carried a seaplane which she used to warn her of
hostile war vessels and as a scout to find prizes. She sank directly
seven steamships and seven sailing ships, as well as those blown up
by her mines, and she spread general alarm and uneasiness all over
the seas. She came out and went back again through a Narrow Sea
closed with mines and cordoned with cruisers.
CAN CRUISERS PROTECT COMMERCE
How can it be maintained in view of all the above facts, and of the
very favourable strategical conditions for the British blockade in the
last war, that in a future war, even leaving submarines and aero-
planes out of account, the seventy-one cruisers demanded by the
British Admiralty at Geneva in 1927 as a minimum defence of British
commerce, will in fact suffice against a Power disposing of an
efficient Navy and naval bases ? For even these seventy-one cruisers
would not all be available for the trade routes. Under the Washing-
ton Agreement of 1921, sixteen capital ships are allowed to each
of the Navies, American and British. For every three battleships
five cruisers are needed and this ratio has been mutually agreed upon
by the British, American, and Japanese naval staffs. It is certain
to be the minimum the battle fleets will require. Just as Nelson
called ever for more frigates and Jellicoe for more cruisers, so the cry
for such craft will go up from the flag-officers commanding the battle
fleets of to-morrow.
This leaves forty-six cruisers for the defence of trade and the
duty of controlling neutral commerce and capturing belligerent
merchant ships. At least fifteen of these must be in harbour, in turn,
all the time, resting, refitting, boiler cleaning, etc., in order to maintain
efficiency. For guarding all the sea-borne trade of the British
Empire there will be available thirty-one cruisers actually at sea.
Is it supposed that they can hunt down even every Emden, to say
nothing of a Wolf, with a scouting aeroplane, through all the North
and South Altantic Oceans, the Pacific Oceans, the Mediterranean,
and the Indian Oceans ? And their actual task will be far more
IN THE WAR 107
difficult against a navy of even approximately equal powers and with
less commerce than ourselves to protect.
Furthermore, the cruisers of ten thousand net tonnage, as limited
in size at Washington in 1921, and the six to seven thousand ton
ships for which the British Admiralty pleaded at Geneva, will be all
as useless against submarines as — well, as battleships, and as helpless
against aircraft as butter-tubs. The present writers hope that their
very brief excursion into naval strategy and naval history will
suffice to satisfy their readers that technical changes in naval and
aerial warfare have created a new balance of power between offensive
and defensive and between commerce defence and commerce
destruction, which requires a correspondingly complete revision of
British naval policy.
THE SUBMARINE MENACE
Such then were the naval campaigns and the novel weapons with
which Germany nearly won the war. And any nation hard pressed
in the future may be expected to use such weapons or even more
frightful ones. The indiscriminate sowing of the high seas with
fixed and floating mines, commerce destruction by unrestricted
submarine warfare and by surface cruisers or commerce destroyers
in disguise are already accepted evils. Improved modern ocean-
going submarines will not only be armed with torpedoes but with
12-inch guns, the primary weapon of many of the pre-war Dread-
noughts, and with poison gas cylinders for use against coast towns or
merchant ships.
The greatest potency of the submarine is against merchant ship-
ping. Is it to be supposed that they will never again be so used ?
Those who believe it live in a fool's paradise. Already a scholarly
defence of the German submarine campaign has been published in
France, written by a brilliant French naval officer. The considerable
fleets of submarines under construction, or in commission, in the
British, American, Japanese and Italian Navies, speak for them-
selves. The French Navy alone is constructing more submarines
than Germany ever had under construction at any time before the
war. France had on the stocks at the end of 1927 forty-three of
these vessels, including several mine-layers and others of the
io8
COMMAND OF THE SEAS
long-distance cruising type for oceanic operations. In 1928 it is
proposed to lay down for the French Navy one cruiser submarine,
three mine-laying submarines, and twenty others. This is a terrific
programme.
Since the end of the " war to end war " the five principal naval
powers have between them built or commenced one hundred and
eighty of these atrocious weapons. France alone has authorized the
strengthening of the French Fleet by 91 submarines, not including
the 1928 programme. The corresponding figures for Japan are 61,
for Italy, 18.
The United States have 30, not including the 32 large submarines
proposed in the new programme at a cost stated, unofficially, of
£30,000,000, but later dropped out. In 1927 the British Empire
had building 9 submarines and 18 more were projected. The sub-
marines actually built and ready for use in the five principal navies
were at the end of 1927 :
British Empire .
• 55
Japan
. • 58
France
. 44
United States
• 3i
Italy ....
. 42
Meanwhile we have been ploughing the sand of fruitless fuss and
friction about the number of cruisers to be allowed to Great Britain
and America and what their tonnage is to be and whether they should
carry 8-inch or 6-inch guns. The ominous submarine construction
of the maritime powers has not been brought to the notice of the
general public for various reasons. There will be a rude awakening
if ever the peace of the world is broken.
THE AEROPLANE MENACE
And now to the menace of the submarine must be added the new
danger of attack from t^e air. A few merchant ships were destroyed
in the late war by the rudimentary aircraft then in use. Merchant
ships at sea were attacked by Zeppelins. One was actually held up
by a German dirigible, forced to surrender, and navigated into port
by a prize crew supplied by the Zeppelin. This was near the German
coasts where a local command of the sea could be exercised.
IN THE WAR 109
The commandeered ex-German collier Franz Fischer was the
first merchant ship sunk from the air. This was in the area most
closely controlled by the British fleet and under the very muzzles
of our guns. Flying the British flag, she was on a voyage from
Hartlepool to Cowes on February 1st, 1916. Night having fallen
the master was warned by a British patrol boat that an unswept
mine field had been discovered ahead of him and he decided to
anchor for the night, with other vessels, off the Kentish Knock.
A German Zeppelin, on her way back from an airship raid on London,
having reconnoitred the anchored vessels dropped one bomb in the
sea alongside the steamer. Exploding under water, the incom-
pressible fluid element acted as a great hammer driving in her hull.
She was sunk, indeed, just as the Virginia and the Ostfriesland were
sunk by water-bombs dropped from American aeroplanes in the
famous experiments seven years later. She sank so rapidly that the
crew had not even time to cut away a boat ; and of the sixteen
sailors on board only three were picked up by a lifeboat sent by a
friendly Belgian steamer anchored near.
Torpedoes carried by British aeroplanes had sunk Turkish
steamers, including a transport full of soldiers, in the Sea of Marmora
in broad daylight during the Dardanelles operation. The bulk of
the German Air Force was needed on the Western front, where the
German military commanders still hoped for victory. But if
sufficient aeroplanes had been available for use against merchant
ships, even in the stage of development then reached, one more
surprise could have been sprung by an altogether novel method of
attacking sea-borne trade.
AIR-BLOCKADE AND COMMERCE DESTRUCTION
With present improvements in aircraft we may expect, under
similar circumstances, a ruthless campaign from the air against
merchant vessels. The convoy system, which when developed in
the later months of 1917 reduced the danger from submarines, would
only increase the opportunities for air attack. Aeroplanes can
act against merchant ships in only one way — by sinking at sight —
until command of the air over the sea has been established. Once
this has been done, merchant shipping could be ordered by aircraft
no COMMAND OF THE SEAS
to proceed into the ports of the belligerent for examination. And
such a " cut-and-run " command of the air would be even more
irresistible and inhumane in its effects than the " cut-and-run "
command of the sea by submarines in the late war.
In the Great War under-water warfare reached a fairly full,
though by no means a final, form. But the other and more important
form of three dimensional war — air warfare — only entered its first
phase. Aircraft were only used for scouting and raiding, except in
the few cases already mentioned. There was no attempt to set up
an air blockade. But aircraft are undoubtedly the future weapons
for destruction of commerce and demoralisation of the civilian
population. And as aircraft are, in their operation, as unamenable
to the old two dimensional international law as submarines, we
can, from the experience of this last war, forecast at least the first
phase of the next.
The defence of the British cut-and-dried surface blockade against
the German cut-and-run submarine blockade had, as we have shown,
a certain measure of success, though we were clearly fighting a
losing battle against a novel form of warfare. The defensive can only
effectively and economically keep pace with new offensives when
these are on the same plane, so to say, and are not revolutionary.
In the case of aircraft the only defence in any future that can be
foreseen will be a counter-offensive. And there is an accumulation
of authority to the effect that counter-attack is at present, and long
will be, the only defence in air war. Said Brigadier-General Groves,
former Director of Air Operations (Royal Institute, 29th March,
1927) :
" No adequate means of protection against aircraft attack are yet in
view . . . the only effective deterrent to aerial aggression is the threat
of reprisals."
Brigadier-General Lord Thompson, ex-Secretary for Air, says (Air
Facts and Problems ) :
" It is a misuse of words to speak of a bombing 'plane as a defensive
weapon ... its use is chiefly for reprisals."
Which is confirmed by experience in the war — as in the German
attack at Whitsun, 1918, with thirty-three machines, of which only
IN THE WAR in
six were lost against a defence of a hundred British aeroplanes,
four hundred searchlights, eight hundred guns, and about a division
of troops.
But a war of reprisals, as we know, means a war that respects
nothing. And reprisals can now be made with aeroplanes travelling
at three hundred miles per hour, undetectable by sound, carrying
gas bombs that can depopulate London. The French to-day can
drop in one raid a hundred and twenty tons of bombs, just about
ten times the war maximum in weight, that weight being in
explosives with ten times more destructive force. Major-General
Seeley, ex-Secretary for Air, estimates the possible casualties, at
present, as ten thousand daily. And though no doubt these experts
are deliberately making our flesh creep, yet experience suggests
that they do not exaggerate. The principal weapon to be used by
a nation running " amok " in air war would be the water bomb
and gliding bomb. And far lighter bombs would be sufficient against
even the largest merchant ships or passenger liners in comparison
with those needed against warships built to withstand such attacks
or the explosions of torpedoes and shells. In addition aircraft can
carry, and launch to run with great accuracy, the motive torpedo.
They can drop highly incendiary bombs of small size and weight
charged with such substances as thermite.
We know that we survived the German submarine menace not so
much by our resourcefulness as by our resources — not so much by
our retaliations on the enemy as by our capacity for standing
punishment ourselves. It was not our improvised defences of
convoys, flotillas, " Q " ships, nets, air-scouts, etc., that saved us,
but our reserves of tonnage. We had so much merchant tonnage
and the Germans so few submarines that, deadly as the weapon
was, it was not decisive in the time. But will the punishment that
we should incur and inflict through air reprisals in another war to
save civilization leave at the end any civilization to save ? The
only Power that can save civilization from such a catastrophe is
that of an Armed Neutrality guaranteeing a law of nations. As a
leading advocate of air power says :
" Vessels flying the flag of a powerful neutral State are unlikely to be
attacked. The belligerent would be insane who bombed British or
American ships, they being neutral." (Spaight: Aircraft in War, p. 331.)
112 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
He would soon be a certificated lunatic, put where he could do
no more homicides, if the British and American navies were an
associated sea police.
AIR AND A GAS BLOCKADE
But aeroplanes have a still more nerve-shaking shot in their
locker. For aeroplanes working in conjunction, can spread a wide
area of sea with chemical smoke clouds. Brigadier-General Groves
is responsible for the statement that it has been demonstrated by-
experiments that a hundred modern aeroplanes in ten minutes
can lay a smoke cloud ten miles square to lie on the surface of the
water to a thickness of fifty to a hundred feet. And instead of
smoke clouds they could lay a poison gas cloud of the same area
and depth. A large convoy of, say, fifty merchant ships, with its
escorting men-of-war, could thus be obliterated by simple suffoca-
tion of the ships' crews. Just as the poison gas attack from the air
will probably be the greatest menace against the civilian population
on land in any future war, so merchant shipping at sea will probably
suffer more than the war fleets.
That the use of gas at sea on a large scale is no mere nightmare,
is the opinion of both the British and American Naval Staffs. Very
careful experiments have been carried out in the British and
American Navies, and as effective steps as possible are being taken
to minimize the gas danger for warships. Thus, in October 1927,
extracts from the ship's newspaper of the U.S. battleship California
found their way into the lay Press. The following selection from
these extracts is self-explanatory :
" Gas Mask Instruction: During our stay in the yard those men,
at least, who have not previously been through it, will be given gas mask
instruction at the gas chamber, which will be filled with a concentration
of C.N. tear gas.
" Gas warfare defense is being considered more and more seriously in
the navy. While it has never before had a place in naval warfare, there
is no doubt that in the ' next war ' chemical agents may be expected in
the shells of big guns, in aircraft bombs and smoke clouds. Proper
defense against them will be vitally necessary, more so than in the army.
On land gas attacks do not and cannot last long. The worst they can do
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IN THE WAR 113
is cause troops to move out of the infested area. If our floating fortress
is permeated with poison fumes we can't very well move out. And there
are gases, like mustard, which sprayed into a closed compartment in their
natural liquid state will give off deadly fumes for weeks, months.
" There are others of which one or two good whiffs will cause a man
to forget he has a gas mask, and everything else from then on.
" A perfect fitting mask is necessary, as is the ability to adjust it
accurately and fast . The tear gas used for instruction is not poisonous, but
a few seconds exposed to it without a mask will show that it can put a
man out of action quite effectively. If you can't see you can't shoot ! "
Such precautions and protective measures strike one at first
sight as being even more inferior and ineffective to the terrific new
weapon than were the makeshifts against the far less formidable
submarine menace. For example, in the late war merchant ships
were fitted with a defensive armament against submarines, and
often fought off the enemy. It may be argued that they could
also mount anti-aircraft guns. But anti-aircraft fire is inaccurate
and uncertain at the best of times from fixed shore mountings, and
is even more ineffective from the moving platform of a ship at sea.
Such pea-shooting at mosquitoes looks even less practical when we
remember that a modern aeroplane covers a mile in thirty seconds
and that the shell from an anti-aircraft gun takes thirty seconds to
reach twelve hundred feet, which is not an abnormal height in
modern flying. So that between the time the gun is fired and the
time when the shell reaches the point aimed at, the aeroplane can
have moved a mile laterally or several hundred feet vertically ;
while an aeroplane flying low down at modern speeds is a difficult
target to lay on. On the other hand, the slow moving merchant
ship with her unprotected crew is simply a " sitter " for the
aeroplane's bombs and machine-guns.
Again, the gun's crews on board ship can be blinded by smoke
clouds or by the fumes of phosphorescent bombs before the main
air attack. In a word, for a " cut-and-run " command of the sea,
the aeroplane is so potent a weapon for commerce destruction that
no sea law will avail to prohibit its use, and no surface vessel will
avail to prevent or even impede it. The sea power wishing to win
command of the sea for the defence of its own communications and
the denial of its enemy's commerce must win and keep command
H
ii4 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
of the air also. And any future European war will begin with a
struggle for command of the air over sea routes.
AN ANGLO-AMERICAN AIR WAR
So much for European wars. In an Anglo-American war, which
must be considered for the purposes of this book, aircraft, based on
our insular possessions in the Western hemisphere, may well play
as important a part. And if Canada, or the whole British Empire
is involved, as is at least probable, Canada will become the cockpit
of air fighting. Until the Americans occupied and controlled the
whole of Canada and Newfoundland and all the West Indies, British
aircraft in command of the air would be able to destroy many cities
of the United States. Or, if the war is not reduced by process of
reprisals to this abyss of atrocity, aircraft will be able to prevent
the use of American ports on either seaboard or on the Great
Lakes, and the despatch of military forces across the Caribbean
or the Canadian frontier.
It is sometimes assumed that air power and sea power are
antagonistic. This is not so. They are complementary. And, for
the present, surface vessels, submarines, and aeroplanes must
co-operate in carrying out a new strategy and tactics in three
dimensions instead of two, in a cube above and below the water-
line instead of on a plane at it. Already command of the
air will permit the stronger power to deny the air to an opponent's
aircraft, to defend surface shipping from " cut-and-run " raids, to
drive the enemy merchant marine from the seas, and to induce all
but the most powerful of neutrals to enter into the special arrange-
ments and contracts which will be the leading feature of any future
economic " blockade."
No nation, as yet, has acquired such supremacy in aircraft, or
such superiority in their use, as to be able to claim command of the
air. It may be that, just as, in the past, sea power redressed the
balance of power on the land, so in the future air power may redress
the balance of sea power — to the disadvantage of the stronger
maritime nations. But if in a remoter period air power, with its
threat of destruction to every centre of population and source of
production, replaces sea power with its more limited threat to
IN THE WAR 115
coastal cities and sea-borne commerce, that is all the more reason
why the British and Americans to-day should get together in an
agreed neutrality to preserve peace and provide an international
police of national forces.
THE WARSHIP AN OBSOLETE WEAPON
It seems probable that if in the next war an early decision is not
forced by air bombardment it will be sought by air blockade. This
will mean a war of exhaustion in which the superior air power will
make all productive activity, other possibly than simple agriculture,
impossible in the enemy land. In such air warfare sea power and
surface warships would scarcely count at all. For the present they
may have a function as aircraft carriers and commerce protectors
in the remoter seas. But the armoured ship-of-war is as obsolete
to-day in reality as was the armoured horse man-of-war after the
introduction of gunpowder. In the experiments carried out by the
American Government it was demonstrated conclusively that air
craft can in a few minutes sink or disable the most powerful war-
ships, however well protected against ordinary attack by gunfire
or torpedoes.
Following the experiments in which submarines, battleships, and
cruisers were successfully attacked by aircraft, Major-General
Mason Patrick, recently in command of the American Army Air
Corps, with a pretty irony, stated that —
" The air service itself does not for a moment assume to say that battle-
ships, or any other component parts of a naval establishment, are obsolete.
We merely rest on the conclusions of the Joint Board that under proper
conditions we can put out of commission or sink any naval craft which
floats."
The Ostfriesland and the Virginia battleships were sunk in a few
minutes by air bombs. And the American Joint Board reports
(Art. 18) :
" It will be difficult if not impossible to build any type of vessel of
sufficient strength to withstand the destructive force obtainable with the
largest bombs that aeroplanes now carry."
Wherefore if the most scientifically constructed and heavily pro-
tected super-dreadnoughts can be sunk by bombs launched by
n6 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
aeroplanes, obviously merchant ships can be far more easily
destroyed. If, nevertheless, the British, and still more the
Americans, continue to build these costly white elephants of surface
warships, it must be for more obscure reasons of politics — of prestige
— or of profit.
In post-war naval discussions little attention has been given to
the development of the strategic possibilities of air power as distinct
from its tactical uses. Thus both in Washington and in Whitehall
it seems to be taken for granted that a sufficient number of cruisers
and other warships will ensure the safety of American or British
sea-borne trade whether America and Britain are belligerents or
neutrals. The British Admiralty in its propaganda repeats ad
nauseam that a complete blockade of every British port for six
weeks would reduce the country to starvation.
Wherefore, the British Admiralty argues, parity is impossible
with America unless America is prepared to build the kind of
cruisers the British Admiralty thinks that it needs. Whereas the
American Navy Department thinks no less strongly that it needs
a different type of cruiser. And thus the peace between the two
premier sea powers is imperilled by a technical difference of opinion
as to a tactical weapon that is losing, or has lost, its military
importance. For strategic thinkers of insight and imagination
already see that air power will soon transfer the whole problem to
under-water or overhead regions in which the old tactics on one
plane no longer apply.
AIR-BLOCKADE THE FUTURE WEAPON
In these tactical plans of naval experts on either side aircraft
are only, as yet, considered as an adjunct of surface ships or of
submarines. Naval strategists cannot, or dare not, think of air-
craft as in any other capacity than that in which they were mainly
used during the last war — namely, as scouts for surface warships.
So both countries are involving themselves in an absurd competition
as to the capacity and cruising radius of aircraft carriers, or of
cruisers and battleships carrying aeroplanes. The largest of these
aircraft carriers can carry perhaps eighty comparatively small
seaplanes or aeroplanes fitted with floats. These, however, are only
IN THE WAR 117
to be used for scouting at sea, or for torpedo attacks on opposing
warships, for assisting the long range artillery fire and like purposes.
Such aircraft carried in ships will, in fact, be tied down to fleet
uses, which is the most expensive and least effective way of operating
aircraft. The cheaper and more efficient way is to operate aeroplanes
from the shore. And there is no such limit to the size of aircraft
so employed as there is on aeroplanes operated from ships.
In a future European war between mobilized maritime peoples,
fighting " all out," aeroplanes flying and fighting from shore bases
will be an untried, but none the less terrible, menace to a mercantile
marine. In a future war of Continental States, or of nations with
territory near the sea trade routes against Great Britain, such
attack on the showing of the British Admiralty would be decisive
unless, within six or eight weeks, command of the air has been won
by Britain.
On the other hand, if Great Britain had this command of the
air, we would not only be secured against cut-and-run blockades
by commerce destruction, but could impose a new cut-and-dried
blockade by air. For the risk of being " deviated " to a British
port under aircraft escort imposes such sanctions against neutral
shipping that they would be forced to enter into the special agree-
ments and contracts not to trade with the enemy that were such a
feature of the irregular blockade of the late war. And this blockade
at source under sanction of the risk of deviation and detention was
in the last war, and will be in the next, the only blockade really
effective against an enemy.
Nothing but the extreme conservativism created by an excessive
burden of responsibility can explain the dangerous indifference of
naval and military authorities to this radical revolutionising of naval
war by aircraft. For such experts are, of course, in possession of the
striking evidence as to the potency and potentialities of aeroplanes
in attacks on surface vessels.
NAVAL WAR REVOLUTIONIZED
In thus considering the effect novel weapons of war will have on
future warfare as foreshadowed by their effect in the Great War,
we have to calculate also what prospect there is that, in sea warfare
n8 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
at least, these innovations will make possible a revision of sea law
and a restriction of the more extreme expressions of sea warfare
to exceptional emergencies in which every exercise of mediation and
moderation has been in vain exhausted.
The first difficulty in this is getting the expert to apply the lessons
of experience and admit that these new weapons have passed the
experimental stage. The Great War gives us illuminating indica-
tions of what future cut-and-dried blockades and future cut-and-run
blockades will be like under these new weapons. For though Great
Britain and Germany both relied still on the use of surface vessels
and their Admiralties were as conservative as such authorities
usually are, yet the stress of war compelled the development of new
weapons that entirely changed its character.
The mine, the submarine, and the torpedo became the basic
weapons for enforcing both the regular blockade by deviation and
the irregular blockade by destruction. And the strategy of sea
war was thereby extended from a warfare on a plane to warfare in
a space. And the whole system of international law framed for
warfare in two dimensions will have to be reconstituted to fit this
new warfare in three dimensions. It is the same sort of revolution —
as yet only dimly suspected by the public and only clearly seen by
a few experts — that Einstein has introduced into the larger world
of thought.
It is obviously as hard for a naval strategist or an international
jurist to make his mind work in three dimensions as it is for a
geometrician or a mathematician to make his mind work in four.
So they don't do it — until the storm and stress of war makes them.
And the result is that those States in which sea power and its
priests are politically potent tend to lag behind in preparedness.
This has happened with every revolutionary change of weapon since
the days when bows, the longbow and grey-goose shaft, were senti-
mentally cried up as being the national naval weapon and when
guns were condemned as inhuman and unsportsmanlike.
And the same with our " wooden walls." The first iron steamer
went from London to Paris in 1820 ; but the first ironclad was not
launched until forty years later ; and meantime we had fought
two wars at sea. In 1900, Mr. Arnold Forster, M.P., called attention
to the building of submarines abroad, but without effect {Hansard 86,
IN THE WAR 119
cols. 322-332). Five years later a Royal Commission, appointed in
response to further agitation, reported "there was likely to be
no material diminution in food supply during war." Yet ten
years later submarine operations had so materially diminished
British food supply that we were within a few weeks of extremity.
" What we are facing is the defeat of Great Britain," then wrote
Mr. Page. Nor is this unpreparedness peculiar to sea war. Sailors
are less conservative than soldiers. The British still spend over a
million annually on obviously obsolete weapons like cavalry.
Aeroplanes, which are already replacing artillery, are still treated
as scouts. Tanks, which are replacing infantry, are treated as horse
artillery. We keep steadily a stage behind in all new weapons.
Until war and the devil take the hindmost.
In peace time the tendency of the professional soldier or sailor
is to doubt the importance of the innovation and to dispute its
implications. The more hard-shelled professionals will even join
in with soft-hearted pacifists in arranging international prohibitions
of the hated new-fangled weapons as inhuman. And though such
prohibitions always have some " joker " in them that makes them
innocuous, and some Haiti or Liberia can always make them in-
operative by refusing to ratify, yet public opinion is misled into
thinking the new weapon is outlawed and negligible. Thus this
unholy alliance between professional " tough-minded " and pacifist
" tender-minded " is doubly dangerous. It puts us behind in a
military sense, and it puts us under obligations that may endanger
our warfare if observed, and, if not, will certainly exacerbate that of
our enemies.
Such an obligation was the attempt to prohibit commercial
blockade by mine-laying as pressed at the Hague Naval Conference
(1907). It broke down because Germany, then the minor sea
power and therefore the most in favour of new weapons, would
not consent. And it was the use of this weapon by Germany
that, as we have seen, started the war of reprisals and irregular
blockades.
The fourth International Congress on International Law at
Monaco, in 1921, like the first Congress at Frankfurt in 1913, drew
particular attention in its report to the absence of any provisions in
international law for the regulation of the use of aircraft in time of
120 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
war. The convention on aerial navigation which met in October
1919, made no attempt to deal with this matter, and there is an
absence of any rules applicable to all States as to liability for damage
caused by airmen to private property. Aerial warfare at sea in the
future will start, therefore, without even such restrictions as
restricted — or rather did not restrict — the use of submarines against
sea-borne commerce in the last war. And the next war will relapse
as quickly into unrestricted reprisals, and the world will rattle even
more swiftly into barbarism unless it is made known beforehand
that the two most powerful nations in the world, the United States
of America and the British Empire, are determined to prevent new
barbarities at sea made possible by man's conquest of the upper air
and the under-water.
BRITISH POLICY MUST BE REVISED
As matters now stand, therefore, there is no real restraint in
international law, whether conventional or customary, on the
operations of submarines or aeroplanes for commerce deviation or
destruction. Which means that in a future war, as things are, our
shipping and supplies will have to run the gauntlet, not only of mines
and submarines, but also of aeroplanes. The only defence seems
to be the use of convoy and escort by aeroplane carriers and anti-
submarine surface craft. And neither our experiences of naval war
nor our naval experts encourage us to think that the defence would
be enough to secure such a measure of safety as would save us from
the risk. While our enemy might be strong enough to impose
restrictive agreements on our supplies.
For the British Empire the problem indeed is insoluble if the
British people under present naval conditions are to depend only
on the old " wooden walls " translated into terms of steel. No
surface ships, however costly, however we may crowd the seas
with them, will again be a " sure shield and buckler " as in the good
old days of the sailing man-of-war.
We have no very great hopes that British professional and
public opinion will recognize this revolution and revise their policy
accordingly. We rely rather on American professional and public
IN THE WAR 121
opinion to whom command of the sea with surface ships has not
yet become a creed. It is interesting to-day to refer to the con-
sidered conservativism of naval opinion in the critical years when
a naval war with Germany was daily drawing nearer. At the
beginning of these years of preparation some apprehension was voiced
by the British Chamber of Shipping and other big business interests
as to the security of sea-borne trade in the event of war.
Accordingly there was set up in April 1903, the Royal Commission
on the Supply of Food and Raw Material in time of War already
referred to. It was manned by the best available naval and
mercantile experts. Every assistance was given by the Admiralty
and all available witnesses were closely examined. The report is
too lengthy to quote in full ; but it will suffice to notice that the
confident opinion expressed was that the attack on commerce would
be more difficult than in the sailing-ship days and its defence easier !
For example, after referring to the regular arteries of trade at sea
and the wide distribution of the ships carrying food and raw materials
to the United Kingdom, the Commission found that —
" these facts, especially when taken in conjunction with the power
afforded by steam of following the routes according to the necessity of
any given period, make the condition of the chief trade routes an
extremely favourable one for successful defence."
All possibility of effective blockade of the United Kingdom was
dismissed. Dealing with the modern commerce raiders the Com-
mission stated the following :
" No doubt a considerable number of ships might be required to effect
the actual capture of a single hostile commerce destroyer, so long at
least as her coal lasted ; but it has been explained to us by Admiral Sir
Cyprian Bridge that, if only one of our cruisers were in pursuit, it could
be made too dangerous for a hostile cruiser to remain on or about a
trade route. Obviously under these circumstances her freedom of
action would be much hampered and the damage she would be able to
inflict would be limited."
Compare this expert opinion as to what would happen with what
did happen in the cases, for example, of the Emden and of the
disguised raiders Mbwe and Wolf.
In answer to certain doubts expressed by a minority of members
of this Commission the Admiralty published a special memorandum,
122 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
in which they stated that, while it was impossible to guarantee that
no captures of British merchant ships would be made by an active
enemy, the Board believed there would be no material diminution
in the supplies reaching the United Kingdom ; and, be it noted,
what was then in contemplation was a war between the British,
Empire single-handed and Germany single-handed.
At the time the Commission was reporting in 1905 the submarine
boat was at much the same stage of its development as is the aero-
plane to-day. The Report consequently, when it came to a dis-
cussion of the new weapons," was mainly concerned with the
possibility of torpedo-boats and destroyers being used for commerce
destruction. After describing the limitations of such craft, very
similar to those of submarines, as, for example, the inability to spare
prize crews or to accommodate prisoners, the Commission reported
their opinion as follows :
" If, therefore, such craft are employed against commerce, for which
they were never intended, they could only compel merchant ships to
follow them into port under threat of being torpedoed. Moreover these
craft can only operate within a comparatively short distance of their
shore bases."
Yet, as a matter of fact, it was these small craft that largely carried
out the patrol duties of the British deviation-blockade in the Great
War. Which means that in 1905 British expert authority, while
preparing for naval war, overlooked the blockade uses of destroyers
and small surface craft. Ten years later, while actually prosecuting
naval war, they overlooked the blockade uses of submarines.
To-day, ten years later, they are overlooking the blockade uses of
aeroplanes.
It is conceivable that the largest ocean-going types of submarines
could act as cruisers in accordance with the laws of nations and
humanity, even if command of the sea was still being disputed in
certain areas. And in one or two cases they did so act in the last
war. As soon as command has been won the stronger Navy will
not require to use submarines for commerce " deviation " and the
weaker will only be able to use them as Germany used them for
commerce destruction.
But it is useless to expect that aeroplanes and seaplanes of the
modern swift fighting type could examine merchant ships before
IN THE WAR 123
destroying them or provide for the safety of their passengers and
crews ; and no attempt appears to have been made either at the
Washington Conference of 1921 or the Geneva Conference of
1927 to draw up rules for the use of aircraft at sea in regulation
of, or attack on, commerce, while it would be extremely rash to
suppose that they will not be so used should the opportunity
occur.
Moreover, modern aircraft are comparatively cheap. The largest
flying boats yet constructed for the defence of the British Empire
only cost £17,000 each and are capable of very long flights. They
can fire at merchant ships with their machine-guns or torpedoes and
drive in the sides of their hulls under water with time-bombs.
Modern inventions in the air have made the attack on merchant
shipping so much easier and its defence so much more difficult
that it is hard to see how any one nation can hope to achieve such
supremacy in the; sea and the air as can be called a Command
of the Seas.
Command of the sea means the nearly complete defence of sea
commerce and communications for allies and neutrals and a nearly
complete denial of them to the enemy. Such a command of the sea
ensures final victory, and Great Britain can only in the future
exercise such command, whether of the sea or the air, in association
with, or by the approval of, the United States. The British Navy
by itself cannot ensure the safety of British commerce against sub-
marines and aeroplanes either with seventy or with seven hundred
cruisers. America and Great Britain could secure supremacy so far
as surface vessels can now secure it.
But if the British cannot by themselves keep Command of the
Seas, Americans cannot of themselves get Freedom of the Seas.
The British will, as a secondary naval power, be able to challenge
American supremacy in the Eastern Atlantic, in the Mediterranean,
in the Indian Ocean and even in the Western and Southern Pacific.
Whereas together the two Navies can ensure such freedom for the
nationals of both and for those of all other States, whether the British
Navy is supported by the other members of the League of Nations
or not. Failing such American association the new Freedom of the
Seas will be to seek. Wherefore if neither the British nor American
peoples alone and apart can expect to be able in the future, by the
124 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
old cut-and-dried command of the seas, to ensure their own com-
merce, what sense is there in their adhering to the now obsolete
weapon of blockade ?
NAVAL BLOCKADES OBSOLESCENT
There is in Whitehall, in Westminster and in Pall Mall still an
influential Round Table of " blue water " Bayards who are ready
to risk the heart of our Empire being bled white and its backbone
broken by the engines of modern war, in the hope that we may
again be able to bash the head of our private enemy with the battle-
axe of an old-fashioned blockade. The power of interrupting the
commerce of a private enemy is still regarded by Blue Water Bucca-
neers as a valuable asset in international affairs. They quote the
successful stranglehold of the British Fleet on Napoleonism, and
affect to believe that British naval action alone defeated Kaiser ism.
In arguments on the Committee of Imperial Defence, in Parliament,
in the Press and on the public platform, and before the Cabinet, these
professors emeritus of the good old blue water school claim the in-
dispensability of an " invincible " British Fleet. But they with
professional obtuseness ignore, on the one hand the coming of the
submarine and aeroplane, and on the other hand the Covenant of
the League of Nations. Their case is that a war may still be waged
in a vacuum between the British Empire and some other belligerent.
Thus Admiral-of-the-Fleet Lord Wester Wemyss, formerly First
Sea Lord, in a Debate in the House of Peers, initiated by himself,
used these exact arguments (Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords,
Vol. LXIX, No. 69, 10th November, 1927). He advocated, with a
missionary fervour, the renunciation of all restrictions on the saving
grace of surface sea power, including the Declaration of Paris. He
argued, quite correctly, that during the last war we had had to
depart from them all. And he demanded that we should announce
to the world our intention in the event of war of using our naval
power to the utmost for the capture of an enemy's property where-
soever found and for the cutting off of all his sea-borne trade.
Viscount Haldane, ex-Minister of War and ex-Lord Chancellor, with
full knowledge of the inner working of the Committee of Imperial
Defence, of the will of the Admiralty and of British " authority "
IN THE WAR 125
in general, admitted in the same debate that Lord Wester Wemyss
was undoubetedly speaking for the Admiralty. Which, indeed, is
common knowledge.
Now let us suppose, only for the sake of the argument, a war
between England and France. All the resources of the Council of
the League of Nations are used in vain, both nations refuse the
award of arbitration, neither is adjudged an aggressor, and civiliza-
tion stands aside with hands folded while these two Great Powers,
after the statutory delay of three months under the Covenant,
proceed to ruin and raid each other in a so-called private war. We
have only taken France as an example that will not be misunder-
stood, as the relations between France and Great Britain suggest at
present no such risk.
This would be the same kind of war that was contemplated
between England and Germany in the years before 1914. For while
both British and German dispositions and plans contemplated a war
between two groups of allies, they also considered the case of a duel
between England and Germany, no other nation intervening.
Indeed, at one period of the pre-war naval competition a not incon-
siderable body of opinion in Britain held that it would be in our
highest interests, and, of course, in the interests of humanity,
civilization and justice, if a descent were made upon Germany
before that Navy had received the proposed accessions of strength.
We will leave aside the fact that such a war between England and
France would probably be decided in the air ; and we will not con-
sider the kind of " cut-and-run " command of the sea and the air
that France would attempt to win by means of aeroplanes, sub-
marines, mines, cruisers and commerce destroyers. Though it is to
be noted that the French Colonies are numerous, well distributed,
dispose of strong land armaments, and that they provide admirable
cruiser bases for the support of commerce raiders on the surface,
below it, and in the air above. We will only examine the probable
workings of the British blockade on France.
It is true that, with the command of the sea which we may antici-
pate in these circumstances for the British Navy, the French
Mercantile Marine would disappear for the time being. French com-
munications with the Colonies would be cut off. But France might
lose every one of these Colonies and still remain undefeated. The
126 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
theory of the ancient mariners of the blue water school is that the
stranglehold of the British blockade would make France surrender
within a measurable time, through the cutting off of French com-
merce and of colonial resources in materials and man-power. And
they cite the defeat of Napoleonism by the British Navy and claim,
correctly enough, that the cutting off of maritime trade from France
in those days did inflict a very real injury. But this was because the
carriage of goods overland was at that time tedious and expensive.
Whereas in these days Europe has a network of overland communi-
cations— the railway system is highly developed — the canal system,
with the power-hauled or driven barges, is efficient — and excellent
motor roads exist all over the Continent which carry an immense
goods traffic by motor lorry and an immense passenger traffic by
motor-car. It would therefore be impossible to prevent goods
reaching France from Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and
Spain, almost as cheaply as before.
If to prevent this trade we strained the doctrine of continuous
voyage to the utmost, we should have to interfere with the commerce
of all these countries to an intolerable extent. Indeed, if France
was prudent enough not to use submarines, aeroplanes and other
raiders against sea-borne commerce and was careful of neutral
interests, a British blockade would be either quite ineffective as a
means of economic pressure, or only too effective as a means of
raising an armed neutrality against us — or even additional enemies.
Supposing that an old-fashioned close blockade of the French
Atlantic, Channel and Mediterranean ports was practically possible —
which it is not. Then American vessels attempting to enter such
ports or to leave them would be stopped, searched, seized and taken
into British harbours for adjudication by the British Prize Court,
there to be tried and condemned, ships and cargoes being confiscated.
By the Law of Nations American merchants and shipowners so
mulcted would have no just grounds of complaint. But, provided
there were no greater grounds of complaint against inconvenience
and loss inflicted on them by French submarines, aeroplanes or
cruisers, what would be the American attitude ?
The same difficulties would arise for Britain were Germany or
Italy or any other great European Power her adversary. Russia,
which at present is our most probable private enemy, cannot be
IN THE WAR 127
mortally or even seriously injured by a blockade, as very recent
history has proved.
The only other major country against which it could be effectively
employed would be Japan. And for this purpose there would be
needed a far stronger Navy than the British Empire can possibly
afford for some generations to come. Even Singapore and Hong
Kong could scarcely serve as bases for a close blockade of the
Japanese archipelago. And only a close blockade, which is im-
practicable in face of the submarine and the aeroplane, would
prevent Japan from treating with, and drawing on the resources of,
China, Korea, and Asiatic Russia.
Private war may be abolished — but there is no doubt that " close
blockade " is as obsolete as the " wooden walls " with which it was
built up. It could only be considered as a practical possibility in a
secondary war confined to naval operations ; and even in such a war
it would cost more than it would be worth.
The Blue Water Buccaneers also confuse the case by claiming that
it was the British blockade that defeated Kaiserism. No legal
blockade was ever established against Germany, not even after the
entry of America into the war. The entirely novel methods of
applying blockade pressure to Germany were undertaken not
under the rules of blockade but under the Reprisals Orders in
Council.
Between 4th August, 1914, and 1st March, 1915, neutral ships
could, in theory, visit German ports with non-contraband goods.
Except by way of reprisals, justified by German breaches of the
law of nations and of humanity, there was no legal means of stopping
goods coming from Germany or of non-contraband goods from
going in.
In practice what was done, as we have seen, was to extend the
contraband list to cover nearly all articles of commerce. Even so,
99 per cent, of this contraband, conditional or absolute, was captured
as being in " continuous transport," that is to say while in transit
to neutral ports on the supposition that it was to be transferred
overland to Germany. Moreover, under the first Reprisals Order in
Council all goods of enemy origin, destination, or ownership became
liable to seizure. This was an exceptional measure of retaliation
outside ordinary naval law which could not have been put into
128 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
force legally, at any rate, had it not been for the prior infringements
by Germany.
In the kind of private war in vacuum that we are considering and
the possibility of which is the main argument for retaining our
remaining rights at sea, we shall either have to establish a legal
blockade, very difficult in view of modern developments of weapons
of war ; or under the Declaration of Paris of 1856 we must rely on
capturing goods going to our enemy in neutral ships as contraband.
And we can only indefinitely extend the contraband lists with the
goodwill of the neutrals concerned ; which means that their
sympathy must be with us.
Under modern conditions it will be important to stop the export
of enemy goods to neutral countries overseas. For the successful
export of such goods will support the enemy's credit in foreign
countries with which he can purchase supplies, carry on propaganda
and the like. An example in the late war will be of service.
In the early part of 1916 the British Government, under the
Reprisals Orders, began seizing securities and scrip of enemy origin
found in the mails carried in neutral ships, mostly consigned by
Dutch bankers in Holland to banks in the United States or South
America. We had seized nearly a million pounds' worth of such
sinews of war before the Germans, hearing of our action, stopped
the traffic altogether. This established a new precedent in naval
warfare, but one such precedent does not make international law.
Such goods could only be seized in the event of a legal blockade
being established with a neutral benevolence amounting to un-
neutral service or at the risk of making a neutral belligerent.
NAVAL BLOCKADES BLOCKED
There would seem to be only two ways of dealing with the diffi-
culties of blockade to-day, using the word as a generic term. The
first is to regard blockade in the future not as applying to a line of
enemy coast, but as a blockade of trade routes and lines of com-
munication by sea and land alike. This will require a complete
revision of international law, which can only be effected with the
co-operation of natural neutrals like the United States and will be
dealt with in the following chapter.
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IN THE WAR 1*9
The second is to give notice to the world, as the gallant Admiral
proposed in the House of Lords, and many other gallant admirals
have proposed elsewhere, that we intend no longer to be bound by
the Declaration of Paris but to revert to our old original practice of
seizing enemy goods in wartime wherever found.
The Declaration of Paris may or may not be " international law "
and inviolable. It is usually assumed that it is ; and it has been
generally respected until the Great War. The point is, however,
are we prepared and are we in a position to denounce it now, except
in agreement with the other principal sea powers. Would these sea
powers, and especially America, allow us to return to the methods
of exercising sea power practised by us a hundred years ago in
entirely different circumstances and in a world in which our
command of the sea was absolute ? British Governments can
be very reactionary. But it is difficult to imagine the most
reactionary Government behaving so rashly and romantically as
this.
The British will, as things go and as we shall later show, be on a
parity in surface sea power with the Americans in about five years,
and will then have lost the power they have hitherto held of im-
posing a private " cut-and-dried " surface blockade as against any
probable combinations of belligerents and neutrals. This power was
the real purpose of the British two-power and three-power standards
before the war. After the war the destruction of the German war
fleet left them supreme in this sense until the advent of American
sea power.
But what about the new three-dimensional warfare with sub-
marine and aeroplane ? The rival of the British here is not America
but France. There is no strategic object in building submarines
against France for commerce destruction. What about aircraft ?
We can of course outbuild France in the air. It would cost com-
paratively little and we are the wealthier country. But if we did
we should not thereby get such a command of the air as we have
hitherto had of the sea surface. Our air command could never be
converted into a cut-and-dried blockade of communications and
commerce with France. An air war between British and French
would be a war of cut-and-run raids on either side, destructive not
only of commerce but of all civilization,
i
i3o COMMAND OF THE SEAS
NAVAL BLOCKADE MUST BE ABANDONED
Are we prepared to face these facts ? If so, then we are at once
confronted by this conclusion : that so far from it being in our
interest to return to a private right of blockade as it was previous
to the Declaration of Paris, it is no longer in our interest as a
belligerent to resist a further restriction of the present private right
of blockade — and it never was and is less than ever now in our
interest as a neutral to resist such further restriction. We have seen
how the unrestricted right of cut-and-run blockade by submarines
nearly cost us the victory in the last war. We have suggested that
a similar right of aeroplanes may cost us the next war. We have
shown how the attempts hitherto made to restrict these new
weapons by international authority and agreement have been worse
than useless. We have submitted on good authority of experts and
of experience that the only effective restraint on these weapons
is the fear of reprisals by the belligerent or the fear of retaliation by
neutrals. Which all brings us to the question whether this fear of
retaliation and reprisal can be so organized as to save the British
Empire from the risk of defeat and European civilization from the
risk of destruction in the next war. If it can, then it will certainly
be worth while for us British to surrender in return our unrestricted
right of blockade, as we have already surrendered the unrestricted
right of building battleships on which blockade once was based.
And just as that step was taken in association with America, so
must the next step be taken by a new agreement between the
United States and the United Kingdom.
CHAPTER III
FREEDOM OF THE SEAS AFTER THE WAR
IN this chapter we have to consider how a settlement of the
Law of the Sea came to be omitted from the peace terms,
though it was included in the War aims of both the American
and Germans.
The situation towards the end of the War was thus described by a
Norwegian neutral (Michael H. Lie : " Freedom of the Seas,"
Recueil de Rapports, Vol. 2, page 175) :
" In the present economic war blockade plays by far the most important
part. The extremity on both sides has led to a system of arrangements —
declarations of blockades without directly debarring certain coasts,
special war zones and mines in the High Seas — all outside international
law. The blockade is moreover principally directed against neutral
commerce. The principles of international law have become uncertain.
It would be useless to claim in the coming peace negotiations that the
great maritime powers should desist from the right of commercial
blockade. . . . One might as well propose the abolition of naval warfare."
It is interesting to observe that had America taken sides with
Germany against the British supremacy at sea there would have
been a peace which would have provided a new sea law based on
Freedom of the Seas under an international regime and regulation.
As it was, American public opinion and policy became concentrated
on aiding the British to establish a complete command of the seas.
While German policy and public opinion changed its ground and
lost its grip on the situation as the tide of war set against it.
FREEDOM OF THE SEAS — GERMAN VERSION
The Freedom of the Seas was for Germany a mere war slogan,
like our " Liberties of the Lesser Nations." There is nothing to show
that they meant anything more than that they were fighting the
131
i32 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
British sea power, that had given us a long start in commercial
competition before the war and that was strangling and starving
them in the conflict itself.
Before the Great War Germany's policy as to Freedom of the
Seas was ambiguous. She claimed that she was building a fleet to
ensure Freedom of the Seas as against British Command of the Seas ;
but what were the principles and procedures held to constitute.
Freedom of the Seas was left undefined. And when opportunities
for such definition offered, as at the Hague in 1907, the German
Government was no more liberal in its attitude than the British.
It was due to the German Government that the abolition of contra-
band, and even the immunity of private property at sea, found no
place in the Declaration of London. And the absence of any real
German naval policy in this respect was reflected in the disagree-
ment of their doctors. Some German jurists preached immunity of
private property (Maurer, Schucking, Weyberg) — some the status
quo (Triepel, Stiersomlo) — some unrestricted sea war (Niemayer,
Perols) .
The German claim to be contending for Freedom of the Seas was,
before the war, little more than camouflage for the navalism of which
the Kaiser made himself the " loud speaker." " The trident must
be in our hands " — " Our future lies on the water " — were not
principles of a new international sea law. And this attitude of
self-help and self-sufficiency continued into the war. Reventlow
(18th February, 1916) called for "A Freedom of the Seas founded
on steel not on paper." Ballin repeated his slogan — " Come out of
the wet Triangle."
But as the war went on it became clear that the escapades of the
German Fleet in cut-and-run raids and commerce destruction, and its
still more surprising evasion of destruction in pitched battle, were
not going to affect the main issue. Gradually the German policy
became one of a Freedom of the Seas sanctioned by international
agreement rather than by national armaments. It was this phase
that was given some international authority by the Pope in his
peace message (1st August, 1917), which made an appeal for the
recognition of the principle of Freedom of the Seas. But this did the
principle little good ; for the peace movements were not prepared
to accept the Pope's arbitration, and the War propagandists could
AFTER THE WAR 133
denounce it as a German " Peace Trap." At last, with German
defeat in the field, came the final phase in which Freedom of the
Seas was exploited as a means of evading peace penalties. In the
German draft of the Constitution for a League of Nations drawn
up by Erzberger we find Freedom of the Seas secured by a new sea
law including neutralization of Narrow Seas, immunity of private
property, transfer of the right of economic blockade to the League,
and most-favoured-nation navigation treaties for all members. A
similar definition was given by the Foreign Minister, Count Brock-
dorf-Rantzau at Weimar (14th February, 1919) ; and, as the menace
of penalties grew more imminent, Freedom of the Seas was extended
to include an international regime for regulation of commerce,
colonies, and communications (Dernburg, Erzberger, Maurer). By
that time " the Devil a Saint would be." But by that time, also the
allies were assuring one another " Courage, mon ami, le diable est
mort " — and were busy partitioning Hell.
FREEDOM OF THE SEAS — NEUTRAL VERSION
Nor was there any much clearer or more combined opinion among
European neutrals as to the regime of Freedom of the Seas and its
relation to the post-war reconstruction of international relations.
There was little more than a vague '* Vceu pieux." And the first
form in which Continental proposals for a peace league took shape
was that of an " Armed Neutrality." The complete suppression or
suspension of the rights of neutrals in international law by the
continuation of the blockade of the belligerents on either side,
naturally suggested that the proper remedy was an association of
geographic neutrals like the Scandinavian States, or " guaranteed "
neutrals like Belgium and Switzerland to which the other powers
would accede after the peace. This association would then introduce
a new system of international law and impose " sanctions " for its
enforcement.
We find this idea well formulated even before the war by Barclay
(Institut de Droit International, 1904, page 35) :
" La neutrality n'est plus une solution passive. Les interSts des neutres
sont aujourd'hui les interets de la majority, par consequent les plus
i34 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
puissants. Le temps viendra et peut-etre bientdt, ou les neutres se
coaliseront contre les belligerents et cerneront les deux partis par un
cordon sanitaire comme on enraie les pestes et les incendies."1
During the war it was developed by neutrals (for example Bornhak,
" Wandel des Volkerrechts," 1916, and Burckhardt, " Recht der
Neutralem," Pol. Jahrbuch, 6th, 1915 ; Nippold, " Das Volkerrecht
im Krieg," Pol. Jahrbuch, 1914). Also by the less nationally minded
publicists of the belligerents. Thus Lammasch (" Beruf der Neu-
tralen," Int. Rundschau, June 1915) :
" Wenn die Staaten, die, die ernste Absicht haben, sich in kunftigen
Kriegen neutral zu halten sich zu einem standigen Bunde zusammen
schliessen, wenn sie gemeinsam ihre Vermittlung anbieten und ebenso
gemeinsam jene Konsequenzen der Ablehnung ihres Anerbietens androhen,
wurde dieser Bund eine Macht reprasentieren auf deren Gegnerschaft es
selbst die Machtigsten nicht gerne ankommen liessen."2
It was such a collective guarantee of neutrals as to their own respon-
sibilities and rights that was in principle the origin of the League of
Nations. Such armed neutrality, even though not formally expressed
in an association, is still in fact the real guarantee of the post-war
League, as it was the real guarantee of the pre-war International
Law.
It would be easy to trace the development of this idea of an armed
neutrality into the Peace League, but it is only dwelt on here for a
double and a special purpose. In the first place, to bring back
the mind of the reader to the real basis of the League, underlying
the tangle of technicalities as to sanctions and security pacts. In
the second place, to show the point to which we must return in order
to get together British and American public opinion for the real
move towards naval disarmament and peace.
1 "Neutrality is no longer a passive solution. The interests of neutrals are
to-day the interests of the majority, and therefore of the most powerful. The
time will come, perhaps soon, when neutrals will coalesce against belligerents
and will enclose both parties with a sanitary cordon as one checks plagues and
fires."
* "If the States that really intend to remain neutral in future wars would
associate in a permanent alliance, if they would jointly offer their mediation and as
jointly threaten the consequences that would follow a refusal of that offer, then
their alliance would represent a Power that the strongest Power would not willingly
challenge."
AFTER THE WAR 135
FREEDOM OF THE SEAS — BRITISH VERSION
As for the British, their reactions to peace terms, including Free-
dom of the Seas, were no more than a reflection of the American
pressure. And American pressure against British blockade was at
first not unaffected by German representations. In one of its notes
to the American Government Germany demanded —
" definite rules and safeguards, limitations of armaments, and Freedom
of the High Seas."
The Austrian Government demanded that the Seas be " freed from
paramountcy." These appeals were not without effect at first as is
evident from the American note to the British Government (21st
July, 1915), which observed ominously that " Germany and our-
selves are both contending for Freedom of the Seas." While
a note to Germany of the same date declared that the United
States would stand for Freedom of the Seas, no matter which side
attacked it, without compromising and at any cost. This incipient
German-American association for Freedom of the Seas produced so
profound an effect on our Foreign Office, as it well might, that in
spite of the growing indignation in America, caused by German
submarine warfare, we find Sir Edward Grey (15th November,
1915, Pall Mall Gazette), accepting the immunity of private property
at sea as a possible peace term. The acceptance of Freedom of the
Seas as a matter for the peace settlement was, however, obviously
due to the American attitude and was bound to be annulled should
America abandon neutrality.
This remarkable change in the policy of the British had been thus
brought about. In the Spring of 1915, Colonel House, unofficially
representing President Wilson, was in Europe exploring the
military and political situation to find some means of ending the
War by American mediation. The struggle had not then become an
embittered War of exhaustion and it looked as though a basis could
be found. The British and French Governments demanded the
evacuation of occupied territories, including Belgium. The Germans
demanded territorial compensations for war costs and for future
security.
136 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
We shall quote the Colonel's own account of his action in his letter
to the President from Berlin on March 27th, 1915 (The Intimate
Papers of Colonel House, Vol. I, p. 414) :
" It occurred to me to-day to suggest to the Chancellor that, through
the good offices of the United States, England might be brought to
concede at the final settlement the Freedom of the Seas, and to the
extent I have indicated to you. I told him that the United States would be
justified in bringing pressure upon England in this direction, for our
people had a common interest with Germany in that question.
" He, like the others I have talked to, was surprised when I told him
the idea was to go far beyond the Declaration of Paris or the proposed
Declaration of London. I said that someone would have to throw across
the chasm the first thread, so that the bridge might have its beginning,
and that I knew of no suggestion that was better fitted for that purpose
than this : That if England would consent, this Government (the German)
could say to the people that Belgium was no longer needed as a base for
German naval activity, since England was being brought to terms."
In his preliminary conversations with the British prior to his visit
to Berlin (10th February, 1915), Colonel House had found Sir Edward
Grey and Sir William Tyrell (Permanent head of the Foreign Office),
not unfavourable to Freedom of the Seas.
" Sir Edward . . . thought Great Britain would be willing to agree
that all merchant shipping of whatever nature, belligerent or neutral,
would be immune."
The following day Sir William Tyrell stated that :
" Great Britain recognised that the submarine had changed the status
of maritime warfare, and in the future Great Britain would be better
protected by such a policy (absolute freedom of merchantmen of all
nations to sail the seas in time of war unmolested) than she has been in
the past by maintaining an overwhelming navy." (ibid., page 376.)
Unfortunately the Germans with their usual stupidity, instead
of waiting until peace was in prospect, published at once a declara-
tion in the terms of the Colonel's conversation. So, of course, when
he returned to London he found that British suspicions were aroused
and the Freedom of the Seas was being regarded as a German peace-
trap. When Colonel House talked to Lord Bryce about it (22nd
May, 1915), the latter —
" did not seem in favour of it, saying he had heard that Dernburg very
much desired it. I replied that I was the instigator of it in Germany.
AFTER THE WAR 137
and the Germans were merely echoing the thought I had given them.
He laughed and said he felt better, for, if we were doing it, he was quite
sure it was not a bad thing, and that in the future he would look at it
with more friendly eyes." (ibid., page 467.)
We accordingly find Freedom of the Seas relegated from being the
avenue of approach to an immediate peace to being an accessory
advantage to be gained in an ultimate peace. Thus Sir Edward Grey
writes to Colonel House (10th August, 1915) :
" The pearl of great price, if it can be found, would be some League of
Nations that could be relied on to insist that disputes between any two
nations must be settled by the arbitration, mediation, or conference of
others. International Law has hitherto had no sanction. The lesson of
this war is that the Powers must bind themselves to give it a sanction.
If that can be secured, freedom of the seas and many other things will
become easy. But it is not a fair proposition that there should be a
guarantee of the freedom of the seas while Germany claims to recognize
no law but her own on land, and to have the right to make war at
will. . . ." (ibid. Vol. II, p. 87.)
If this conversion of the British when in extremis to Freedom of
the Seas was proved later to have been diplomatic, there is no
reason to believe that the German conformity was any less a death-
bed conversion. Or, that if they had dictated peace, they would
have done any more for reforming and restoring a Law of the Seas
than we did. Their doctrine of Freedom of the Seas was in fact not
international in its inspiration, but national, and based on the hope
of a balance of sea power.
FREEDOM OF THE SEAS — AMERICAN VERSION
But what really matters was not what Freedom of the Seas
meant to Germany when already beaten, nor even what it meant to
Great Britain when already blinded to her best interests by victory,
but what it meant to an America that was bound by her ideals and
her interests to force peace on the world — and to force it first on the
Germans, and then, if necessary, on British and French. Taking
President Wilson as the spokesman of American public opinion we
find him first combining the American idea of Freedom of the Seas
and the ideal of a Peace League in an address to the American League
to enforce Peace (27th May, 1916). He there advocates —
138 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
" an universal association of the nations to maintain the inviolate
security of the Highway of the Seas for the common and unhindered
use of all the nations of the world and to prevent any war, etc."
At this time the United States were still rigidly neutral. Said
President Wilson in the same speech: "We are in no sense or
degree parties to the present quarrel." He was therefore basing
this League on the only firm footing on which America can associate
in European affairs — the Sea. Later, just before entering the war,
he built further on this basic idea in an address to the Senate (22nd
January, 1917). He then wrote :
" The paths of the sea must alike in law and in fact be free. The Freedom
of the Seas is the sine qua non of peace, equality and co-operation. No
doubt a somewhat radical reconsideration of many of the rules of
international practice hitherto thought to be established may be necessary
in order to make the seas indeed free and common in practically all
circumstances for the use of mankind, but the motive for such changes
is convincing and compelling. There can be no trust or intimacy between
the peoples of the world without them. The free, constant, unthreatened
intercourse of nations is an essential part of the process of peace and of
development. It need not be difficult either to define or to secure the
freedom of the seas if the Governments of the world sincerely desire to
come to an agreement concerning it. It is a problem closely connected
with the limitation of naval armaments and the co-operation of the
navies of the world in keeping the seas at once free and safe."
FREEDOM OF THE SEAS IS DROPPED
As America became belligerent and joined in the British blockade,
Freedom of the Seas, from being the basis of American policy,
gradually drops into the background. In the second of the Fourteen
Points (address to Congress, 8th January, 1918), Freedom of the
Seas appears as only one of America's war aims, though it is still
obviously an essential element in the whole programme of peace
proposals. But neither in the " Four Principles " (nth February,
1918), nor in the " Four Objects " (4th July, 1918), nor in the " Five
Conditions " (27th September, 1918), does it again specifically appear.
The President had had, in fact, to make his first concession to the
force of circumstances. And he could do this without danger to his
whole structure of peace once the United States had entered the war.
AFTER THE WAR 139
With a real instinct of statesmanship he had already recognized
that America being neutral, the Sea was the best possible basis for
its association with Europe. But now that American armies were
to invade Europe to impose peace, the United States had a firm
footing on land for intervention.
Moreover, American opinion was soon more interested in backing
up the British blockade to beat the Germans than in the traditional
rights of American traders. Also there was now the British ally
to be considered. And surrender, not only of sea supremacy, but
of sea " self-help " in the matter of blockades and other belligerencies
did not much appeal to a Great Britain that had just emerged from
a life-and-death struggle at sea to a position of sea supremacy never
before achieved.
Nor was it a recommendation that such a surrender would serve
to introduce a super-sovereign authority that would regulate
international relations. The Allies were international dictators and
were not attracted by an international democracy. The fact that
Freedom of the Seas had become the base of a League of Nations,
was no recommendation. For the League, though it appealed to the
peoples and the pacifists, was looked on askance by patriots and
politicians of the Right.
The American claim to Freedom of the Seas had been attacked
throughout the war by our propagandists and patriots. Even
internationalists like Professor Gilbert Murray and historians like
Professor Ramsay Muir, joined the chorus of condemnation. The
general line of attack was that (a) Freedom of the Seas had no real
meaning or (b) that it meant surrender of the sea power by which
the British lived. Then (a) that it was German war propaganda or
(b) that it was an American peace trap. Or (a) that it was to be the
basis of a Holy Alliance such as that against whose oppression
America had declared the Monroe doctrine or (b) that it was the vain
approach to a visionary Utopia. Finally (a) that the difficulties
were insuperable and (b) that it was too dangerous to touch.
Therefore, when the Germans offered to surrender on the terms
of the Fourteen Points there was much anxiety in London lest this
might enable the President to force Point II — the Freedom of the
Seas — on the Allies. And the attitude of British statesmen and the
atmosphere in which they dispose of the destinies of the world is
140 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
worth reproducing from the Diary of Field-Marshal Sir Henry
Wilson. (Vol. II, p. 135) :
" Then we discussed President Wilson's answer to Prince Max.
Clemenceau and Pichon were for taking no notice. They said they had
no official cognizance, so could take none. Lloyd George pressed that
an answer, not for publication, be sent, pointing out that if the Boches
accepted the 14 points we should be in a difficult position, as we could
not agree to Point 2, ' Freedom of the Seas,' and that therefore we
should tell Wilson plainly that evacuation of occupied territory was a
necessary preliminary to any exchange of views about an Armistice,
which would then be a matter for the Military to settle."
This entry was on 13th October, and the next day he continues :
" I saw in the paper this morning that the Boches have accepted my
Cousin's offer (President Wilson, no relation), viz. evacuation of all
occupied territories and 14 points. Milner telephoned to say I had to go
down to Hassocks to Lloyd George for lunch. I found there Lloyd
George, A.J.B. (Lord Balfour), Bonar Law, Milner, Winston (Churchill),
Reading, Wemyss (Deputy First Sea Lord), Hankey (Secretary, War
Cabinet), Philip Kerr (Prime Minister's Secretary). We discussed :
1. What we were to say to President Wilson. 2. What we were to say
to the Press.
" As regards Wilson, we agreed that we would wire to say that he must
make it clear to the Boches that his 14 points (with which we do not
agree) were not a basis for an armistice, which is what the Boches pretend
they are. As regards the Press, we agreed that they should be told that
Wilson is acting on his own, that the War is not over, that the 14 points
are not an armistice, and that an armistice is not sl peace. It was a very
interesting afternoon. Everyone angry and contemptuous of Wilson."
Certainly a comparison of the characters of this British militarist
with that of his great pacifist namesake and a consideration of the
political influence acquired by this bigoted and arrogant though
able soldier will make us angry and contemptuous to-day ; though
not with the American Wilson. Unfortunately the personal and
professional influence in politics of Generals and Admirals still
prevails only too often and still produces disastrous mistakes in our
foreign relations with friendly peoples.
But, in the light of the above extracts, we can understand how it
came about that, when President Wilson later formally submitted
the Armistice terms to the British, these reserved themselves
complete' freedom as to the Second Point. And in this they easily
AFTER THE WAR 141
secured the support of their allies. Which, however, would not have
precluded or prevented the President from pressing it at the Con-
ference had this been otherwise possible. But the British opposition
to any revision of Sea Law was strongly supported by the other
Allies. For it was well worth while for France, Italy, and the others
to get British support for their territorial claims at the cost of
accepting a British command of the seas that would be the best
guarantee for securing and safeguarding a settlement in opposition
to national ethics and international economics. Against this
unholy Alliance of the Armies and Navies of Europe, led by the
diplomats and demagogues, President Wilson could not even count
on a solid support from his own countrymen for his peace policy.
Not only was public opinion in America in a fever of war psychosis
against Germany and all Germany's war aims, including Freedom
of the Seas, but it was fascinated by the glory and glamour of the
Great War, and its grimness and grossness had not had time to force
itself on Americans as it had on Europeans. Owing to the homo-
geneous character of the people and the insularity of their continent,
Americans have a capacity for concentrating on one point of view
which is as dangerous to themselves in peace as to their enemies in
war. The end of the war came while their nationalist navalism was
at its height, consequently the anti-navalist internationalism of the
President was as noxious to these patriots as to the British.
For this and other reasons a further handicap came to be imposed
on the President. The elections for the Senate (November 1918),
gave a majority to the Republicans ; and in March 1919, Senator
Lodge, the most bitter opponent of Wilsonism, became Chairman of
the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. It is true that the
Republicans only got their majority with the help of Senator La
Follette, an independent, and of Senator Newberry, who had been
sentenced to imprisonment under the Federal Corrupt Practices
Act, and was only saved to vote by the Supreme Court declaring the
Act unconstitutional. But so mysterious are the dispensations of
providence that to the escape of the Senator for Michigan is probably
due the exclusion of a naval settlement from the peace and the
present collision between British and American Sea Power. For,
on President Wilson's sailing on his second journey to Versailles,
Senator Lodge was in a position to inform him that his project of a
142 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
Peace League must be dropped. The President was not the man
to be dictated to by the Senate ; but thereafter he was in that
position of an Executive in conflict with the Senate which he himself
had described as the curse of the American Constitution. (Congres-
sional Government, 1885, pages 50 to 52).
By accepting various Senate amendments to the League Covenant
the President had avoided an open rupture with Congress and re-
turned to Versailles to deal with the diplomats and demagogues there,
who, in his absence, had dropped the principle of a peace settlement
by the League and had been busy reconstructing Europe in accord-
ance with the ■ ' Secret Treaties . ' ' One of these amendent s established
as international law one of the American principles of policy by
including in the Covenant recognition of the Monroe doctrine.
(Art. XXI.) But the other more truly international principle, that
of Freedom of the Seas, was dropped, and disappeared. The President
had to lighten his load, and that he should have forced the League
on the Conference is, in the circumstances, a feat that puts him in
the front rank of the world's workers for the peace of nations.
PRESIDENT WILSON'S DEFEAT
Having thus explained how it happened that the foundation stone
upon which he framed his Temple of Peace came to be left out of
the final structure, we are not concerned with the story of his other
struggles with the powers of darkness. It is quite the most tragic
story of the many tragedies of great Statesmen. We see him
arriving in Europe, a last hope of all the honourable men and women
who had been suffering for years under the horrors of the new war-
fares and the worst dishonours of the old diplomacies. We see him
in the Council of Four opposing an — " I stand for the right " to the
sinister secret intrigues of his colleagues. " This man talks like
Jesus Christ," sneered the " Tiger." We see him back on the
American platform appealing for his mutilated Peace League, his
malversated Points, and his misappropriated principles, to fellow
countrymen who could not recognize his difficulties but realized his
defeat. And we see him struck dumb in the crisis of disaster. Yet
he had achieved more, in spite of all his mistakes, than could have
been expected from any man. And if his disciples now can finish
AFTER THE WAR 143
his task by bringing British and Americans together for disarma-
ment, peace, and Freedom of the Seas, it is only because he did not
wholly fail.
Wilson looked on the League as a means of rectifying the wrongs
of the Peace Treaties and of reconstructing the regime of international
relations on a peace footing. But the " Tiger " school looked on it
as a means of prolonging the War Alliances and of imposing the
penalties of the Treaty. It is a question indeed whether on
balance the results of Versailles are better than those of Vienna in
the settlement of a century earlier. The Vienna peace terms were
more equitable and stable than those of Versailles, while the League
of Nations has more capabilities for good and less for evil than the
Holy Alliance. The difference in favour of the League is due partly
to the more democratic character of the leading constituent nations,
and partly to the more resolute character of Wilson as compared
with that of the Tsar Alexander, the founder of the Holy Alliance.
WHY AMERICA BUILDS A BIG NAVY
Some volumes of original documents of the Peace Conference
were published three years after it had ended (Woodrow Wilson and
the World Settlement). The third volume contains the confidential
memoranda to President Wilson written by the United States Naval
Advisory Staff under Rear-Admiral W. S. Benson. These are State
documents of the highest importance whose publication has not
received the attention it deserves in British circles. They give an ad-
mirable insight into the true American standpoint on naval and many
other questions, and they set out very fully and fairly the reasons
why the United States should have a Navy as large as that of Great
Britain. For example (Extract No. 22, 14th March, 1919, Vol. Ill) :
" The League of Nations," wrote the Advisory Staff (which at that
time was working on the basis of a League), " must be strong enough
to restrain, if necessary, its strongest member. No international Navy
made up of ships of heterogeneous types, training, language, custom and
command could hope to cope with the British Fleet. There must exist
in such an international force a single unit of the same nationality of
equal strength to the navy of Great Britain. Such a unit with the
assistance of the forces of the League would be able to enforce the
mandates of the League against any power. The United States has its
144 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
ambitions satisfied and can be relied upon to support loyally the League
of Nations. The nations of the world know this and have faith in us.
Should we ever fail in our international obligations there would exist
the forces of the League with the fleet of Great Britain to apply the
remedy."
Although America is not a member of the League of Nations
every word of these arguments applies to-day. For this policy
contemplates a community of naval interests in international law
that would offer a security and sanction of a different order from
paper protocols.
Again :
" There are in the world but two great Powers whose existence depends
on naval strength. These are Great Britain and Japan. In the past
Great Britain built with the exclusive idea of keeping a safe superiority
over the German fleet. In the future her sole naval rival will be the
United States, and every ship built or acquired by Great Britain can
have in mind only the American fleet. Japan has no rival in the Pacific
except America. Every ship built or acquired by Japan can have in
mind only opposition to American naval strength in the Pacific. The
United States, in their desire to maintain the peace of the world and
to help all nations, must not forget the necessity of national safety.
Any reduction in our relative naval strength will weaken our influence
in the world and will limit our ability to serve the League of Nations."
These arguments may suggest that the naval writers were still
basing themselves on Balance of Power. But a closer reading will
reveal that it was not the old Balance of Sea Power, in which each
Navy was competing for sea supremacy ; but a new balance in
which the navies should combine to establish the joint minimum
necessary for sea police and the individual maximum to be contri-
buted by any State. This was the principle afterwards partially
applied at Washington. And, in balancing the American Fleet
as an international sanction against the British Fleet, concerned
only with its own national security, the authors were facing the very
fact which subsequently has checked further progress in pursuit of
disarmament. The view held by the American Government of
that day undoubtedly represents American opinion then and now ;
and may be summarized as follows :
" A stable League of Nations, or any other stable system of Sea Law
and Security, requires two equally great navies. In the case of the League,
AFTER THE WAR 145
with one dominant naval power, namely Great Britain, the most powerful
non-member, namely America, must have a fleet equal to that strongest
Navy in the League."
In the case of an Anglo-American association, however, the
joint navies need be no larger than would dominate any other
possible association. America, whether in the League of Nations or
outside, must accept the burden of a Navy equal to Great Britain's.
These documents can be of such service to a real understanding of
position that we will give another extract (Adm. Benson to
Pres. Wilson, 7th April, 1919) :
" Every great change in world conditions makes it incumbent on each
of the several States of the world to re-examine its special situation, and
to determine from this examination the policies that will enable it best
to fulfil its duties to the world and to itself. Such a change in world
conditions has come and such a duty now falls upon us as Americans.
There are many interrelated external policies which America must
determine, but this paper deals with naval policy only. Naval policy is
a means to an end, a means designed to assist the State in the attainment
of its international mission. This mission for the United States is two-
fold— a duty to itself and a duty to the world.
I. To promote and guard the interests of the United States in
every way consonant with justice.
II. To assist in promoting the welfare of the world.
" We can make no progress in promoting our international interests,
or in promoting the welfare of the world, except through international
relations. Whenever we enter into such relations we meet with other
national aims, with other national desires for the advancement of the
interests of other nations."
After arguments showing that nations seek their advantages by
negotiations with force as a sanction and that real negotiation in
nternational affairs can only take place between equals in power,
the memorandum continues :
"... When we examine our own world situation in the new order of
things, we realize that all of our important international relations and
all of our important international questions hinge upon matters relating
to the sea and sea communications. We cannot advance our external
interests, nor can we influence world policy, except by way of the sea.
Practically all of our great commerce is sea commerce. If any foreign
State desires to bring military pressure to bear upon us, it must be a
146 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
pressure based upon possible operations by way of the sea. The attack
of our Colonies, of our commerce, of our frontiers, depends first of all
upon what happens at sea. Conversely if we desire to retaliate or to exert
opposing military pressure, we must base our efforts upon our sea power.
" In the past our naval position has derived great strength from the
potential hostility of the British and German Fleets. Neither the German
nor the British Fleet could venture abroad without grave risk that the
other would seize the opportunity thus presented to crush a rival. This
condition gave to America a position of special strength both in council
and in decision, because her navy was so strong that no other navy could
neglect its influence. All that is now changed. The German fleet has
ceased to exist, with the result that we suddenly find the British navy
in a position of unparalleled strength. No navy is left in Europe capable
of offering any real resistance to the British Navy.
"Under present conditions the British Navy, with its world-wide
supporting organization, is strong enough to dominate the seas in whatever
quarter of the globe that domination may be required. We do not
consider this a condition calculated to advance either our own just
interests or the welfare of the world. A power so absolute that it may
disregard other powers with impunity, is less apt to act with justice than
if there be a balancing influence of force as well as of world opinion to
oppose it. This is true within a League of Nations as well as without a
League of Nations.
" Even when force is not applied, the knowledge of its readiness is
always an asset in negotiation. The smooth and leisurely phrases of
diplomacy derive their pungency from a vision of the force in readiness
that lies behind them. Governments are influenced less by words than
by material facts. We are conscious of this in every phase of the
proceedings of the Peace Conference now in progress. Everyone, except
ourselves, looks to British Naval Representatives for suggestions in
naval matters, and to French Military Representatives for suggestions
in military matters. This phenomenon is the unavoidable tendency of
the strong to dominate, and of the weak to accept domination."
It is interesting to speculate as to whether what now follows was
brought to the notice of the British Cabinet before the meeting of the
Coolidge Naval Conference at Geneva or was studied by the British
delegates at that ill-fated meeting :
" Since we are considering naval policy as affecting American interests,
and since the British Navy is the only navy in existence that can threaten
the American Navy, British policies have a peculiar interest for us.
Every great commercial rival of the British Empire has eventually found
AFTER THE WAR 147
itself at war with Great Britain— and has been defeated. Every such
defeat has strengthened the commercial position of Great Britain.
" The constant effort of Great Britain through centuries has been to
acquire control of the foci of the sea commerce of the world.
" A present governing policy of Great Britain is the control and monoply
so far as possible^of international communications. These include :
Submarine Telegraph Cables,
Radio Systems,
Commercial Aircraft,
Merchant Shipping,
Fuelling Facilities,
Fuel Deposits.
" The British negotiations at the Peace Conference are conducted
with these objects frankly in view. Their attainment is possible largely
through British strength at sea. No one can contend that such monopolies
represent the promotion of interests that are just to all the world.
" The possibility of future war is never absent from the minds of
statesmen, so we see in the British negotiations a very careful attention
to the preservation of their present military domination of the sea."
And again, in the same memorandum the members of the Naval
Mission refer to the British desire for the most liberal interpretation
of belligerent rights on the High Seas. On this the following com-
ment is made :
" Very few people realize how reluctant the British are to codify
maritime international law. They naturally prefer the absence of law
in order that during war their Navy may have complete freedom of
action. The absence of maritime law during the present war has led
to an expansion of so-called belligerent rights that certainly would never
be accepted by an International Congress.
And be it noted that in these memoranda, written in 1919, there is
no reaching out after hegemony or domination at sea. All the
Americans were asking was for a Navy equal to the most powerful
Fleet in the world. Later in the same memorandum (No. 23) the
following argument is used ; and it underlines one of the principal
contentions put forward in these pages :
"It is not believed, however, that any competition in armaments is
necessary. Once the principle of two equal naval Powers ... is made
clear to our own people and to the British public, a means will be found
to maintain a parity of the two fleets with the minimum of burden to
the taxpayer."
148 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
If the reader will examine the arguments used in these memoranda
written at the end of a Great War and never intended for the public
eye, least of all for the foreign eye, he will see in them a high devotion
to public service and a true conception of peace on the part of
citizens of a warlike and wealthy nation. They leave the way
open for Englishmen who can rise to the same heights to join with
that nation in ensuring the interests of the world.
AMERICAN DISGUST AT PEACE TREATIES
The death of President Wilson, the rejection of the Peace Treaty
by Congress, and the repudiation of a partial and partisan League
by American opinion, left the settlement of the issue between
British Command of the Seas and American Freedom of the Seas
to a future agreement between these two Sea Powers. For the
League, owing to British supremacy and American suspicion, had
become as inacceptable an arbiter as had been the Papacy between
England and Spain in 1498, or between Great Britain and Germany
in 1917. In order to give an idea how insuperable this American
suspicion is and how insoluble at present are all equations including
Washington and Geneva as factors, we shall quote what was said
of the League by Senator Norris in the debate on the Treaty. He
hits hard, but his homeliness has the ring of truth and is racy of the
real opinion of Americans.
" I started this thing in good faith. No man had more honest and
beautiful intentions than I had when the peace conference met at
Versailles. No man in the world was more anxious than I to have per-
manent peace. I believed that our allies were honest and honourable.
I thought they were square ; I thought they were fair ; and when the
league of nations part of the treaty was first given to the world, while
I disliked some of it, I was on the point of swallowing it. But when I
discovered that these same men who had talked eloquently here to us
had in their pockets secret treaties when they did it ; when I discovered
that they pulled out those secret treaties at the peace table in contraven-
tion of and in contradiction to every agreement they had made when we
entered the peace conference ; when I saw that they were demanding
that those secret treaties be legalized, and more than all, when I saw
our President lie down and give in and submit to the disgrace, the
dishonour, the crime and the sin of that treaty, then I said, ' Great God !
AFTER THE WAR 149
I don't believe I want to have any dealing with you people. You are
dishonest ! You have concluded to act here just the same as you were
acting in barbarous days, after proclaiming to us, and after we believed
you were in earnest and fighting for democracy to build a peace, and a
world peace, a league of nations that would bring peace and happiness
forever to a suffering people." (History of the Foreign Policy of the
United States. Adams. Pages 410, 411.)
This quotation is given as representing what we believe to be
still the real opinion of a majority of Americans. This was the
frame of mind in which Congress rejected the Treaty and accession
to the League. And the Democratic Party responsible for them was
heavily defeated in the election of 1920 which made Mr. Harding
President. Though the election of 1920 was not fought mainly on
the League issue, though many prominent public men — Root, Taft,
Hughes, Hoover, Lowell, etc. — signed a manifesto that they were
voting Republican as the best way of bringing the United States
into the League, though Hughes was made Secretary of State, and
though a plank was introduced into the Republican platform " to
straddle the League," yet once the election was over there was no
doubt as to the policy of the new President and of the old partisans.
President Harding in his opening address to Congress (12th April,
192 1), declared —
" In the existing League of Nations, world governing with its super
powers, this Republic will have no part."
And public and galleries, until then uninterested, burst into applause.
It was no encouragement to believers in the League that the
President went on to adumbrate his ambition of starting a " new
association of nations " — " conceived in peace and dedicated to
peace." The comment of the Senator for Missouri — " What he says
of the League suits me, I don't know what the rest means " —
probably expressed the mass of American opinion.
Of all the counts in the long indictment that history will bring
against the Peace Conference the most serious will be the severence
of the League from its source in American pacifist idealism and its
subornation into an instrument of secret diplomacy. For, as a
result, we find that the United States, which at the end of the war
were not only the most pacific but the most powerful of the nations,
were left to pursue their own interests and ideals independently of
150 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
Europe. As their relationship with the allies was thus ruptured and
that with the former enemy powers not yet fully resumed, the
United States were isolated and could only make their influence
felt by pressure. Realizing that their war making had failed in its
object of bringing peace to Europe, owing to the reaction that
victory had caused in the Allied peoples, the Americans set about
forcing peace on Europe by pressure. Europe had refused to be
led to peace by Wilson : it should be driven by Harding.
AMERICAN POLICY OF PRESSURE
Americans have two great advantages over other peoples as
peace-makers. They have in the first place public men who are
not afraid to make a moral appeal on popular lines, irrespective of
plutocratic interests or political influences ; and they have a public
opinion that will make a hundred millions respond almost as one
man to the right motif struck at the right moment. No other
civilized people, except the Soviet Union, can move as one mass
with such momentum.
In the second place the United States are not only the wealthiest
in resources of men, money, materials, and mechanisms, but have
also accumulated during the war the savings of Europe spent on
war supplies. They are able to add money power to moral appeal.
On the other hand, Europe was left by the war a welter of victors
in reaction, of vanquished in revolution, and of new nations still in
renascence, all alike impoverished and all preparing another war.
For example, in 1912, two years before the Great War, France
spent £40,000,000 on war preparations — in 1920, two years after
it, the bill for war preparations was over £200,000,000.
The Americans, their moral appeal having failed, turned to money
pressure. Their exaction of the war debts which has been so much
resented in Europe and in England on moral grounds, has a per-
fectly good moral justification. A creditor is justified as a good
citizen in enforcing the conditions of his contract against a debtor who
is imperilling the peace by spending the money, not on developing
his business, but on buying weapons to fight his rivals. Put down
your swords and daggers or pay up your debts — was a perfectly
sound policy in the interests of humanity.
AFTER THE WAR 151
With this policy of enforcing debt payments we are not directly
concerned, but only with a development of it.
" We Americans can't stop you all in Europe from further ruining
yourselves with expenditure on armaments and their inevitable result
in further wars, but we can check you by making you pay your debts
to us. Further, we will ourselves use your money for so outbuilding you
in armaments that we shall have not only our present financial hold over
the situation but also a naval supremacy. That financial and naval
supremacy, with the power of political pressure it gives us, we shall use
for making a peace and maintaining a police in the world."
That is the argument. The attitude is not unlike that which we
British assumed during the past century when we were in a somewhat
similar position of power.
That policy has been pursued with much persistence, and the
financial basis of it is now laid in the various funding agreements
under which European peoples now pay, or don't pay, an annual
tribute, proportional to their means, for the support of an American
naval police. It must be admitted that this payment is no more
popular than was the ship-money levied by Charles I for a fleet to
fight pirates. It must also be admitted that the practical security
for peace thereby procured is preferable to that which they would
get by their subscriptions to the League. For the Americans did
not wait for the receipts of this " education rate," or the settlements
of disputes as to its assessment, to begin providing a police force
that could give pause to any private national fleet. In the years
after the war American battleships were built of a class and at a
cost with which not even the British could compete. A programme
of twelve battleships and six battle cruisers, in addition to con-
struction on the same scale in other classes, was enough to put
American command of the sea in a class by itself within a very few
years. For the British had had to reduce their swollen war fleet
to a peace footing for reasons of economy. In the years after the
war the British practically stopped construction and scrapped
about 1,800,000 tons of warships. But in 1921, in reply to the
American programme, they started building four super-Hoods. In
1920 Japan had started a programme of battleships for completion
in 1928. An armaments competition between an Anglo- Japanese
allied fleet and the American fleet was thus launched to the
152 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
distress of the British democracy and the dismay of the British
Dominions.
But the Americans did not press the competition to its logical
conclusion. Because in the first place, as has been shown in
Chapter II, the battleship as the prime factor of naval power was
already obsolete. Though its extravagant cost in comparison with
its effective value made it very suitable for a game of beggar my
neighbour. The obvious procedure therefore was to force an agree-
ment on disarmament with Great Britain by building battleships ;
but not to press this beyond the very first point at which the
required eifect had been produced. The American version of our
" Jingo •' war chant would be :
" We don't want to fight, but by Monroe ii you do,
We'll have the ships, we'll have the men, we'll have your
money too."
WASHINGTON CONFERENCE CONVENED
Now this power makes the American move for disarmament a
very different thing from that of any previous move in history
for this purpose. Benevolent monarchs have often made disarma-
ment proposals at the end of a period of war. Thus the progressive
Austrian Emperor Joseph, after the Seven Years' War, proposed
a reduction of armaments to Frederick the Great. The cynical
King of Prussia attributed this to the weakness either of the Austrian
Prince or of the Austrian purse. The Tsar Alexander took the same
line at Vienna after the Napoleonic wars. His successor in 1898
succeeded in getting the first Hague Conference of 1899 with as
little result. But all these moves failed, as did President Wilson's,
because there was behind them no sanction of money power or of
military power.
President Harding was nothing like so great a man as President
Wilson ; but he succeeded where Wilson failed because a material
pressure was more suitable to the circumstances than a moral appeal.
Also President Wilson had prepared a procedure for him and had
perhaps premeditated this policy as a second string. For President
Wilson seems to have foreseen that the general peace might not
include a settlement of the sea as he had hoped. In the Naval
AFTER THE WAR 153
Appropriation Act (29th August, 1916, United States Statute,
vol. 39, page 618) after outlining American Naval Policy, and
observing —
" that without a common agreement every considerable power must
maintain a relative standing in strength "
the Act authorized the President to construct a very considerable
new navy within three years, namely, ten battleships, six battle
cruisers, and smaller vessels to correspond. It further authorized
him on the close of the war to call a Conference to consider dis-
armament. Here, therefore, we have the beginning of the " stick
and carrot " alternative subsequently pursued. The war ended
officially for the United States under the Treaties of 192 1, whereupon
President Harding acted on this mandate on the motion of Senator
Borah.
In his procedure he avoided the three main mistakes of his
predecessor. He entrusted the conduct of the affair to able
lieutenants, his Secretary of State, Mr. Hughes, the ex-Secretary
of State, Mr. Root, and the Chairman of the Senate Committee,
Senator Lodge ; and he also included a Democratic representative
of the opposition party, Senator Underwood. This, coupled with
his advantage that there was a Republican majority in both Houses,
kept the country solid behind him. Then, having called the Con-
ference at Washington, with the Atlantic breezes between it and
the fogs of Versailles, he conducted it on the lines of open
diplomacy and kept clear of the " conclave " behind locked doors
and the consultation-in-a-corner procedure that gives intrigue its
best openings.
The aims of the Washington Conference (1st November, 1921)
were stated in the invitation in wording that had not the popular
appeal of Wilson's pronunciamentos. There was no need for it.
We have here a bank president expounding his policy to clients
dependent on his credits, not a prophet proclaiming a gospel of
peace. For example :
" The enormous disbursements in the rivalries of armaments manifestly
constitute the greater part of the encumbrance upon enterprise and
national prosperity, and avoidable or extravagant expense of this nature
is not only without economic justification but is a constant menace to
the peace of the world rather than an assurance of its preservation."
154 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
Which is the Big Business way of saying that warships mean waste
to-day and war to-morrow.
The agenda showed a very practical grasp of what had to be
done to get peace. It may be divided into two main methods ;
one, disarmament by reciprocal reduction and the other demilitarisa-
tion by regional restrictions. The first was a general aim and
concerned chiefly the British Command of the Atlantic ; the second
had a more special aim and concerned the Japanese Command of
the Pacific. The agenda was divided under two heads :
I. Limitation of armaments sub-divided into :
(i) Limitation of naval armaments.
(2) Restriction of new weapons.
(3) Limitation of land armaments,
II. Pacific questions sub-divided into :
(1) China.
(2) Siberia.
(3) Mandated Islands.
WASHINGTON CONFERENCE CONVERTED
The Conference was convened for Armistice Day, 1921. The
ceremonial at the grave of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington had
made an impressive and emotional appeal, and President Harding's
opening address had been an almost impassioned asseveration of
the same note. With relief after so much emotional emphasis the
delegates settled down to what was expected to be a formal intro-
ductory speech by the Chairman. Lord Balfour stretched his legs,
Lord Beatty closed his eyes, and Admiral Kato looked more than
ever like a benign Buddha.
But after the first few sentences Lord Balfour was gripping the
arm of his colleague and Lord Beatty gazing stonily at the ceiling
to conceal his stupefaction. What was this the Secretary of State
was saying ? He was, just by way of opening the proceedings,
proposing a 5-5-3 scale, that is, a parity in " capital ships " as
between the United States and United Kingdom and three-fifths
of that strength for Japan with 175 for France and Italy — a scrap-
ping of existing capital ships on a large scale — and a ten-year
AFTER THE WAR 155
scratching of construction programmes. The " replacement
tonnage " in capital ships was fixed at 525,000 tons for the United
States and the United Kingdom, 315,000 tons for Japan, and 175,000
for France and Italy. He was sinking in a few sentences more
tonnage in battleships than all the battles of the world had sunk
in a century.
The British, after they had recovered breath and got their bear-
ings, rose to the occasion. After all, the Americans were themselves
scrapping more new tonnage than anyone and offering Great
Britain parity when supremacy was within their grasp. Besides,
battleships had been a good deal blown on as a weapon of war, and
a competition with America in these illimitable leviathans was out
of the question. So after consultation with the Dominions Mr.
Balfour announced that he accepted the principle of parity and the
Conference began on that basis.
Japan and France, however, fought hard for an improved position
in the scale, Japan demanding a ratio of 7-10 instead of 3-5. The
French Delegation in putting forward a claim for 350,000 tons of
capital ships and no less than 90,000 tons of submarines caused the
one breeze that ruffled the smooth course of the Conference. For
Lord Balfour pointed out that such an armada of submarines could
only be aimed against Great Britain. This " Tigerish " intracta-
bility, combined with the coincident raid into the Ruhr, sacrificed
much that was left of America's sentiment for France. The World
cartooned France trying on the spiked helmet of old Prussia.
But the American position was too strong, and both the 5-5-3
scale and the proposed scrapping and scratching of construction
was accepted with some modifications. The Japanese were allowed
to keep their darling Mutsu for whose construction patriotic Japanese
ladies had sacrificed their jewels. The British were allowed to build
their Rodney and Nelson, the most powerful warships the world
has ever seen — or it is to be hoped ever will see. The total replace-
ment tonnage in capital ships was fixed by the Treaty (Article 4)
as proposed. The size of each new capital ship was limited to
35,000 tons and the gun calibre to 16-inch. Though no restriction
of total tonnage or numbers could be agreed as to cruisers and
auxiliaries, yet their size was limited to 10,000 tons and their
calibre to 8-inch.
156 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
WASHINGTON CONFERENCE— POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES
The nascent naval rivalry between Great Britain and America
was thus checked — for the time being. But at the moment this
rivalry was scarcely realized ; whereas that between America and
Japan was already recognized as a serious risk. For the war had
left Japan dominant on land in the Far East, and her demand for
naval bases and " mandates " in the Pacific centering round the
possession of Yap had caused great friction and much war talk.
The Anglo- Japanese Alliance, by which British supremacy at sea
gave Japan a sort of naval mandate in the Pacific, was a real
stumbling-block to Anglo-American relations and had become a
stone of offence to the Dominions. The Japanese had, during the
war, exploited British support and the absorption of other powers
by war, to establish their hegemony over Siberia and China. " The
Twenty-one Demands " made China a Japanese protectorate, and
at the end of the war Siberia, Shantung, and even the Yangtze
Valley, the British sphere, were in Japanese military or naval
occupation. The United States had not only been forced into a
tacit desertion of the '? open door " and " integrity of China "
policy, but had had to accept a definite derogation from it in the
Lansing-Ishii agreement (and November, 1917) which recognized
Japan's " special interests " in China.
This very undesirable development of Anglo- Japanese Sea
Power in the Pacific was now destroyed by the Washington Con-
ference. The reasons why both British and Japanese accepted an
association with the United States in the Pacific and the American
policy of " open door " and " integrity " and abandoned their
policy of Two-Power supremacy in the Pacific and of occupations
and interventions in China do not concern us. What does concern
us is that the Conference substituted, in the Pacific and Far East,
American Internationalism for Anglo-Japanese Imperialism. On
that basis disarmament became possible; a disarmament in this
case of insular naval bases which were springing up all over the
Pacific and were even more dangerous to peace than battleships.
We have, in fact, in the Treaty for the Limitation of Naval
Armaments (Article XIX) a partial demilitarization of the Pacific by
AFTER THE WAR 157
establishing a sort of neutral zone for the Islands of the Open Ocean
comparable to that established for the Aaland Islands. Fortifica-
tions or naval bases in the Pacific Islands were renounced ; and the
Anglo- Japanese Alliance, which had secured Japan in command
of the Eastern Seas, was converted into a Four- Power Pact between
Americans, British, Japanese, and French, guaranteeing the Pacific
status quo for ten years.
In other words, the Sea Powers partially disarmed, the Pacific
Seas were partially demilitarized, and, last but not least, an inter-
national security pact was accepted, in part, instead of national
sea power. Diplomatic and domestic considerations, among the
latter being the constitutional powers of the Senate, restricted the
sanction of these guarantees to —
" a joint conference for consideration and adjustment " (Article I) —
in case of dispute between the signatories and to —
" communicating with one another fully and frankly in order to arrive
at an understanding as to the most efficient measures to be taken either
jointly or separately " (Article II) —
in case of aggression by another. Moreover, to satisfy the Senate,
then more intransigently isolationist than ever, a reservation had
to be added to the effect that —
" the preamble and provisions of the Treaty were to imply no commitment
to armed force, no alliance, no obligation to join in any defence."
Yet there seems to have been no criticism that this was an insuffi-
cient compensation for the material securities surrendered.
Moreover, such was the impetus of this American initiative for
peace that it carried a settlement whose sanction was sea power
and whose system was naval disarmament, right into a land settle-
ment of the Far East. The Nine-Power Pact, which restored the
" open door " in China and Siberia and ended the military occupa-
tion there, only interests us as showing how far a Sea Settlement
and an Armed Neutrality at sea can second or even supplement the
pacification of a League of Land Powers. We shall have, a little
later, evidence of the limitation of Sea Power in this respect.
Now, this formation by the Republican President of a Peace
League for the Far East with naval sanctions was a feat which
158 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
ranks with the formation by his Democratic Predecessor of a Peace
League of Europe with military sanctions. But Mr. Harding and
his advisers had not formed so clear-cut and complete a plan as did
Mr. Wilson. After their first bold gesture they felt, indeed fumbled,
their way ; and, like their predecessor, they over-shot their objective
and came into collision with the Senate, thereby compromising
much that had been secured. But their line of advance to peace
was even more sound and the effect as profound. They had given
effect to " the spirit of moral disarmament," to use M. Briand's
phrase. They established " a landmark in human civilization,"
to use Lord Balfour's. Even Lord Beatty generously granted that
they had " made idealism a practical proposition." And Lord Lee,
that protagonist of Anglo-German naval competition, rejoiced that
they had " changed the prospect of naval war into a promise of
naval peace."
The Washington Treaties, with their half moral half naval
guarantees, take their place, then, somewhere between the League
Covenant and the Locarno Conventions. In respect of disarmament
they are as general in their scope as the Covenant, and have
succeeded in parts where the Covenant has failed. In respect of
security they are regional like the Conventions and have been
better carried out to the satisfaction of all parties, save for some
technical tracasseries. For the dissatisfaction of Japan as to the
establishment of the Singapore naval base is less justified than
that of Germany as to the non-evacuation of the Rhine provinces.
WASHINGTON CONFERENCE— NAVAL CONSEQUENCES
But there is no doubt that, grave as are the military responsibilities
that the British undertook in the League Covenant and the Locarno
Conventions, they are less serious than the naval renunciations
involved in the results of the Washington Conference. British naval
armaments had, up till then, secured the British not only the safety
of their sea communications in the Western hemisphere, but also a
certain suzerainty over all Sovereign States with sea coasts and
sea-borne commerce. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, in which the
British were predominant partners, had extended this supremacy
AFTER THE WAR 159
of the British policy into the seas of the Eastern hemisphere. This
supremacy the British now resigned in principle by substituting an
Anglo-American partnership — on a basis of parity, with Japan and
other sea Powers as secondary associates — for their previous
predominance.
That the principle of what the British had done was not recog-
nized at the time by them appears later from their recoil when the
proposal arose to extend the principle from capital ships to cruisers.
For neither the British nor the Americans are lucid or logical
thinkers. But the fact remains that the Washington Conference
made a new departure from which there can be, in the circumstances,
no drawing back. The same force of circumstances that obliged the
British to accept disarmament in capital ships and a parity partner-
ship with Americans instead of a predominant partnership with
Japanese — namely, the sea power of America and the sense of
racial solidarity, especially in the Dominions — will compel a similar
response to every fresh American initiative in this direction. The
only alternative being that of a competition in armaments with
America — which is absurd.
WASHINGTON CONFERENCE COUNTER-ATTACKED
But if the British did not clearly realize at Washington what they
had let themselves in for, the Americans showed as little realization
of their limitations. They could force naval disarmament — in an
uneconomic weapon like capital ships — on the British, by first
showing that they would be outbuilt and then offering them parity
and security. The grim menace of the grandiose American warships
on the slips and the generous gesture of scrapping them in the
interests of peace was a coup that could, coming as a surprise, carry
all before it. There was no similar carrot and stick for use against
the French land armaments. M. Briand had been expected to
repeat the gesture of the Americans. The emotional eloquence of
his speech in his own language was appreciated with loud applause,
which was followed by a no less eloquent silence when, on translation,
it was found that he had been giving a very candid exposition of
French militarism. He pointed out that there was no security for
France in Anglo-American sea power, and that the security sought
160 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
by France in the special Treaty signed by President Wilson, and in
the Sanctions of the League, had been refused by Congress. So
nothing was done for land disarmament and the Americans were
reminded that sea power has its limitations.
This rebuff reacted on regions that were properly within the
scope of sea power. For, as has been exposed in Chapter II, the
attempts at Washington to regulate the use of novel and noxious
weapons of sea war, submarines and aeroplanes, failed as against
the interests of secondary sea powers in retaining the right of
independent commerce destruction. The new American sea power
was a strong enough lever to bring about disarmament in semi-
obsolete weapons like capital ships ; but not to bring it about in
respect of effective novel weapons of under-water and overhead
warfare. The British delegation at Washington pressed for the
total prohibition of submarine construction. This was, of course,
opposed by the French, a secondary Sea Power, who relied on
commerce destruction. It was not then supported by the Americans
who assumed the British initiative had interested and belligerent
inspiration. So the proposal failed, and the restriction on the use
of submarines in the Treaty is of little real value or validity as it
has not been ratified by France.
After this check to the American pacifists the militarist forces
at the Conference rallied ; and when President Harding addressed
it with the suggestion that the Conference should meet annually
with a view to forming an " association of nations," he jeopardized
the good work that had been done. If he had proposed forming
an " armed neutrality " of sea powers for the security of Freedom
of the Seas and as a sanction for Sea Law, he would have been
within his rights and hard to refuse. But the attempt to set up a
rival to the League that his predecessor had founded and that he
had repudiated, found no response either with politicians or peoples.
So the Conference that had opened with an initial impetus that
might have carried it through to a real re-settlement of sea power
on international lines, lost its popular appeal. And its prestige
was still further impaired by a difference between the President
and the American delegates as to the interpretation of the Four-
Power Pact.
This failure of the Americans to realize what they were doing and
AFTER THE WAR 161
what was still to be done had evil results. By trying to go beyond
what was essentially a sea settlement into other regions they failed
to establish and extend the sea settlement itself. At once diffi-
culties and disputes in its execution arose because the original
impetus had been lost and no permanent procedure for enforcement
was provided. Disarmament agreements by reciprocal reductions
are especially exposed to expert manipulation such as will soon
destroy all the mutual confidence on which they are based. The
complaints of American experts that their British rivals were
stealing an advantage over gun elevations seems to have been
unfounded. But the suspicions of treason and trickery have done
their deadly work. On the other hand, the complaints of the
Japanese that the construction of the Singapore naval dock just
outside the demilitarised zone of the Pacific was sharp practice,
seem to some of us well founded. It may be that our experts got
the zone so drawn as to allow of this naval base being made ; but a
breach of the spirit of a settlement is none the less a breach if
committed during negotiations.
DISARMAMENT MUST BE COERCIVE
One lesson painfully learned during the ten years that have
passed since the end of the last war is that disarmament must be
in a measure coercive, because no Government will take the
responsibility of disarming except to avoid some risk that is worse.
The only real disarmament, naval and military, has been that of
Germany and of the other enemy Powers, which was purely coercive.
And although this entailed a solemn moral obligation on the
victorious signatories of the Treaty to disarm, this obligation has
not been observed. For the demobilization of the British war
fleets and the demolition of obsolete or obsolescent vessels was not
disarmament. We accordingly find a partial naval disarmament
in capital ships only, achieved by the menace of an American
armament with which no other Power could compete. From this
we may fairly argue that complete naval disarmament, with which
alone we are here concerned, will only be achieved by the coercion
of an Anglo-American associated armament with which no other
Power can compete. A mere removal of the risk against which the
162 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
armament is built up is obviously not sufficient. Indeed, by
removing a coercion and a sanction it reduces the chance of a
reciprocal reduction even when that is required by treaty obligation.
Germany was the second most formidable naval Power in the world ;
but her total removal as a naval Power merely made it less likely
that other Sea Powers would disarm as they were bound to do under
the Treaty of Versailles. Germany to-day is undoubtedly pacific
and progressive. Yet the failure of the other signatories of the
Treaty of Versailles to disarm in accordance with their pledges has
led to a serious agitation in Germany for permission to increase her
own armaments.
The Washington Treaty of 1921 did lead to a substantial limitation
of armaments ; it checked the further building of battleships and
battle cruisers ; and it set a limit to the number of aeroplane-
carriers and the size of cruisers. Why was this ? Simply because
the United States had under construction a very powerful Dread-
nought battleship fleet. If these great battleships had been com-
pleted the American people would have possessed the strongest
navy, at any rate on paper, in the world. The risk of inevitably
incurring and possibly encountering this American supremacy at
sea was greater than that of resigning battleship tonnage. So the
British and Japanese consented to partial disarmament, scrapping
twelve magnificent ships. The blow to their pride and prestige
being alleviated by the generous gesture of America in scrapping
and surrendering her supremacy at sea. But though America's
generosity made partial disarmament easier to the other parties, it
gravely imperilled completion of the process. For the coercion,
which, as we have said, is the only means of compelling disarmament
is now lacking, and at once the " experts " began to seek means of
evasion from the moral obligation. For the risk of disarmament was
represented as now being greater than the risk of not disarming.
BRITISH SEEK CRUISER COMMAND
The belief of the man-in-the-street, especially in America, was that
the principle of parity had been established and that equal navies in
all respects would be maintained as between Britain and America,
with a smaller ratio for France and Japan. It had soon to be
AFTER THE WAR 163
recognized that Great Britain would construe this Treaty strictly
and would observe its provisions rather than its principles. The
British were prepared to accept parity in capital ships because com-
petition with America was hopeless owing to the tremendous cost
of these leviathans, £7,000,000 to £9,000,000 each. It was useless
in the view of many British naval experts, including some high
naval authorities, on the ground that the day of the great battleship
was over. As to the submarines the British, whether of the new or
old school, had no use for a weapon whose principle use was commerce
destruction, and whose secondary use against surface warships
threatened to put them out of business altogether.
The British experts were, however, arguing to themselves thus ;
the battleship is too blown upon to be worth bothering about, and
we can't compete in them on account of cost — let us therefore
accept parity there. The submarine and aeroplane are new-fangled
noxious weapons that knock the bottom out of our strategy and
tactics — let us prohibit them, or at least prevent their use as far as
possible. But in cruisers we can compete. In that weapon we
enjoy the accumulative expertize and experience of two centuries
of sea supremacy. And our commerce and coast protection require
that we should retain that supremacy. By the grace of God and
President Harding Britannia may still rule the waves. So when it
came to cruisers the British representatives had insisted at Wash-
ington, with success, on no limit being placed to the number that
could be built. The Americans consented, considering that parity
was accepted in the primary weapon — battleships — and in principle ;
but they imposed limitation in size and gun-power of cruisers.
As soon as ever the naval architects were ready with the designs
of a new type of cruiser, directed to developing the maximum fighting
force compatible with the Washington limitations of tonnage,1 the
British Admiralty embarked on a very extensive building programme
of these ships. And in this they had the support of traditional
British policy and of a large section of public opinion.
For many generations the British have been taught to believe
that their whole national existence and prosperity depends on sea
power. Not realizing either the revolution effected by the war in
1 The Washington measurement is a departure from previous naval practice.
On the old measurements the tonnage is nearer 13,000 than 10,000 tons.
164 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
naval weapons, or the redistribution of sea power due to the creation
of a supreme American navy, or the recourse open to them of sub-
stituting an international naval security for a national naval security,
they were ready to resort to the obvious and only weapon left to
them — that of cruisers. Thus the British Admiralty in agitating for
this very cruiser programme, which they forced upon successive
reluctant British Governments, Labour and Conservative alike, were
acting for an important section of the British public.
The mistake was in the British Admiralty not having realised the
new factors in the problem of naval command of the seas, and in the
British Government not having given the public any education as
to the essential changes in the problem of sea power and sea pro-
tection. Under these conditions, it was easy for an Admiralty,
anxious as to its responsibilities for national security and only alive
to the problem in its old terms of sea power and surface vessels, to
force an ambitious cruiser programme alike on Conservative econo-
mists and Labourite pacifists.
The first Labour Government took office in the early part of 1924
and found the Defence Estimates laid before them as left by their
predecessors, the first Conservative Government of Mr. Baldwin,
with a programme of eight cruisers, of which five cruisers of the new
type would be laid down in the year 1924. Mr. Macdonald and his
Government made a fight for it ; but they were outnumbered in the
House of Commons, they were outmatched in the Press, and they
were outmanoeuvred by their advisers in the Committee of Imperial
Defence. Moreover they simply could not risk running counter to
what had been the creed of the British Public for centuries.
Five of these new large type cruisers, carefully designed to combine
the greatest possible offensive power compatible with the Washington
Conference, were accordingly laid down by Mr. Macdonald's Govern-
ment. If that Government had remained in office a full and detailed
enquiry into the matter would have been instituted and the necessary
education of public opinion initiated. That Government, however,
fell in the following October.
The Conservative Government that followed it, with a large inde-
pendent majority in Parliament, fought hard against the Admiralty
purely in the interests of economy. But economy is too negative an
appeal to effect so drastic a new departure in national policy ; and
AFTER THE WAR
165
in the end the pacific Mr. Baldwin and his powerful Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Mr. Winston Churchill, were beaten by the Admiralty
and by that " authority " to which Mr. Ponsonby, ex-Under Secre-
tary for Foreign Affairs, rightly ascribes the responsibility for all
wars. The " Birkenhead " programme of 1925 provided for nine
10,000-ton cruisers and seven 8000-tonners, four in the first year
and three in each following year, so by the beginning of 1927 the
British had on the stocks twelve large post-Washington cruisers,
while the Japanese and French had four, and the Americans only
had provision for two of the eight authorized.
This building programme in cruisers allayed the anxieties of
those who had begun to realize that British sea supremacy had been
surrendered at Washington, but alarmed and angered the American
Press and public. The public opinion of America supposed that
parity in all types of naval vessels had been agreed upon at Wash-
ington six years previously. It now suspected that, though Britain
might be sticking to the strict letter of the Washington Treaty, she
was straining the spirit, as she had done in the case of the Singapore
Dock. In June 1927 the Americans signed contracts for the remain-
ing six of their authorized eight 10,000-tonners.
Was there any justification for this suspicion ? At first sight one
might say that there was very little. The statistics published by the
American State Department on the eve of the Geneva Conference
(March 1927) show little cause for alarm.
American British Japanese
Cruisers —
Built — modern .
twenty years old
Total tonnage .
Building
Total tonnage .
Destroyers and Leaders
Built .
Tonnage .
Building
Submarines —
Built
Tonnage .
Building
10
50
32
22
—
—
254,000
2
249,000
14
193,000
6
20,000
138,000
54.209
309
357,658
184
221,425
92
96,390
0
0
10
121
85,016
61
48,143
59
47>8o3
3
3
2
166 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
On this showing the British superiority in cruiser tonnage is only
in tonnage under construction, and is counterbalanced by a great
inferiority in destroyer and submarine tonnage. But what was a
spur to public opinion in America and the trump card of the Big
Navy agitation was the fact that the British cruisers were nearly all
modern, the American nearly all ancient. So that a comparison of
modern ships built gave the British fifty to the American fifteen,
and the fourteen British building were more formidable in type
than the two American 10,000-tonners.
That the British had, in fact, practically profited under the Wash-
ington Treaty is, however, not contested by them. Take, for example,
the following extract from a communication of the Times Washing-
ton correspondent (4th July, 1927).
"It is important to remember that Americans, without exception,
consider equality at sea with Great Britain to have been conceded at
Washington in everything save a written instrument. This meant the
abandonment by Great Britain of the supremacy she had held for a
century, but, equally, it represented an engagement by the United
States not to use her vast wealth and resources to challenge that
supremacy — an example of mutual wisdom and forbearance. The last
five years, however, have seen Great Britain, justifiably, of course, so
far as legal right is concerned, and understandably when her strategic
and political situation is concerned, increase her sea power to a point which
American seamen declare to be of decisive preponderance. Pressure
upon the United States Government to build up to the new figure, or
even to exceed it, will unquestionably be too strong to resist, unless
without further delay what is believed to have been the understanding
of Washington should become a definite agreement."
" We have scrapped," said the Americans, " about three hundred
millions of dollars' worth of the most modern capital ships under the
Washington Treaty, five times as much tonnage as the British and fifty
times as much as the Japanese. The British were allowed to build their
Nelson and Rodney, the must powerful ships in the world, the Japanese
their Mutsu. We have been generous. They seem to be greedy to sneak
an advantage in the very type of vessels which could be used in some
future war to hamper our American commerce, whether we are neutral
or belligerent."
Which feeling was loudly voiced by the members of the Big Navy
school in America, until their pressure for an answering building
programme placed President Coolidge in a difficulty. Wedded to
AFTER THE WAR 167
economy, he nevertheless had to flirt with the demands for parity
with Britain in all types of vessels. This American demand for
parity is represented as emanating from a mere desire for prestige ;
but it will be found that the real cause of the trouble has been the
differing views of belligerent rights at sea between the British and
American peoples.
GENEVA CONFERENCE " MAL VU "
In the next move for naval disarmament the United States again
took the lead. President Coolidge was finding difficulty in restrain-
ing the Big Navy movement. More than once he had had to protest
that his actions and announcements in respect to naval matters were
not to be interpreted as authorizing a naval competition with the
British. But so generally was this rivalry being assumed on both
sides of the Atlantic, that delay in extending limitation to the
auxiliary vessels was becoming daily more dangerous.
Accordingly invitations were issued (10th February, 1927) to
Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan to confer for the further
reduction of naval armaments by the extension of the Washington
ratio for capital ships of 5-5-3 to all auxiliary war vessels.
The reception given to this invitation was somewhat invidious.
The European pacifists, who would have been its natural sup-
porters, were mostly organized in support of the League and looked
on the proposal as another American attempt to compete with the
League. Competition with the League is in the eyes of pacifists as
culpable, as conflict with the Admiralty in the eyes of 100 per cent,
patriots. It made no difference to them that the Preparatory
Commission on Disarmament of the League had just failed, as
President Coolidge had predicted in his February message that it
would. It failed because it had not recognized the fundamental
distinction between the European question of land disarmament and
the World question of sea disarmament — a distinction which this
book is largely directed to defining. But even if it had been recog-
nized there would have been trouble in reconciling " Leaguers " to
an American independent initiative where the League had failed.
The British Conservative Government also should have welcomed
the opportunity of completing the Anglo-American association in
168 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
sea power begun in 1922. But its policy had changed with the relief
from the financial stringency then prevailing, and with the realiza-
tion that it had renounced in principle British predominance at sea.
Mr. Bridgeman had let rather a ]ax^ cat out of the bag in 1926
when he said (Manchester Guardian, 4th June, 1927) : " We
should like to feel superior in cruisers." And the Navy League
were simply provocative. This is their attitude during the
Conference.
" We cannot say that it (War between Great Britain and the United
States) is not to be considered, as it is doubtful how many inhabitants
of the United States are of the same opinion. The desire of the so-called
Big Navy Party in the United States for a predominant navy — for
equality in cruisers technically would tend to have such a result — can
only be because they do give the subject of war some consideration."
(Letter of Navy League to Times, July 5th, 1927.)
The British Government, though it did nothing to check these
extravagances, did not dare decline the invitation. Not so, however,
the French and Italians, whose Governments had no intention of
disarming at all, least of all in submarines and auxiliary commerce-
destroying vessels, which, being secondary sea Powers, they con-
sidered especially valuable. Their official reasons for declining are
not worth reproducing ; for the fact is, that under present political
conditions in these countries, naval disarmament will only be
effected under pressure from a powerful armed neutrality of the
principal sea Powers. Their absence from this Three-Power Con-
ference of the United States, the British Empire and Japan was,
therefore, no great loss, even though the French did their best to
embarrass its proceedings and prevent its success.
GENEVA CONFERENCE MISMANAGED
But in other respects the Conference put itself at a disadvantage
as compared with its predecessor at Washington. In the first place,
it was convened not at Washington but at Geneva. It even used
the offices and officials of the League. For Americans do not yet
seem to have learnt how important atmosphere is for the proper
producing of their diplomacy by popular appeal. This new diplo-
macy of theirs with a good producer, the " star " parts well filled
AFTER THE WAR 169
and featured, and the " stunts " carefully staged, will beat the old
diplomacy all the time. But all diplomats know that off their own
ground, in unfamiliar surroundings, Americans lose confidence in
their own ways of playing the diplomatic game and are likely to copy
the ways of Europe with disastrous results to themselves. And
Geneva, where this Conference was convened, has become an inter-
national Kurort for the old diplomacy, where that decrepit roue
has taken a new and, it is to be feared, a long lease of life. It was as
appropriate a place for the purpose of American policy as would
have been Monte Carlo for an international conference on the
suppression of gambling.
If the staging was bad, the " starring " was worse. The main
subject was big enough, the sums involved large enough, the loss
and liability from failure serious enough to justify leading statesmen
on either side in giving their time. Sir Austen Chamberlain was,
indeed, in Geneva at the opening of the Conference, attending a
Council of the League, and his attendance at the Naval Conference
with the Locarno laurels round his brow and the Locarno Garter
ribbon across his breast, would have helped. For the public has
never realized that Locarno was only the cashing of credits on the
Continent accumulated by the Labour Government and that Sir
Austen, on coming into office, had drawn his cheque on those credits
so clumsily that it was " returned to drawer " and had had to be
presented again before it was accepted. But Sir Austen had other
troubles — in China, Russia, Persia and Egypt. Nor has he ever
acquired the appreciation of the importance of America, realized by
his father late in his life and when the new American star was only
rising over the Western horizon.
So this presumably minor matter of a few cruisers and a fussy
American President was left to the First Lord of the Admiralty.
Though even Mr. Baldwin himself would have been none too big a
man for the business and Mr. Bridgeman was certainly not big
enough.
Mr. Bridgeman, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and head of the
British delegation, had been the prospective candidate for the
Diehard Premiership against Mr. Baldwin when the latter had come
under suspicion, altogether unfounded, of being a statesman above
purely party points of view in relations with British Labour. Mr.
170 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
Bridgeman is a country gentleman whose public position has no
other base than long Parliamentary experience and an easy, cheery
personality very suitable to post-war British politics. He is in fact
a politician of the same type as Mr. Baldwin, and he was runner-up
against him for the Premiership. And it is noteworthy that both
these typically English politicians have met their most serious set-
backs at American hands. Mr. Baldwin with his success in arriving
at a financial settlement ; Mr. Bridgeman with his failure in arriving
at a naval one. It is evident that cheery optimism and a chaste
orthodoxy are insufficient weapons with which to meet the power
of American money backed by both patriotic and pacifist public
opinion.
With Mr. Bridgeman was associated another member of the
Cabinet, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Lord Cecil of
Chelwood. The Chancellor of the Duchy has come to be the Minister
of the Cabinet competent in all League affairs and therefore in-
directly concerned in this Conference ; but Lord Cecil's inclusion in
the British Commission was an afterthought of the Prime Minister
— the Opposition having protested in Parliament against entrusting
a naval disarmament Conference solely to Admirals or their political
representatives. But, besides these two, the Delegation consisted
of naval officers, and among the Dominion delegates was Admiral
Lord Jellicoe. The Dominions had not been included in the original
invitation, and the British insistence on their inclusion brought
about an invitation to the Irish Free State which alone paid the
Conference the compliment of being represented by its Minister for
Foreign Affairs.
On their side the Americans were represented by their ambassador
at Brussels, who presided, and by Admirals. The Japanese by an
ex-Secretary of the Navy, Viscount Saito, by another ambassador
and by Admirals. Wherefore of the members of the Conference
Lord Cecil alone could claim to be a statesman of international
standing and international standpoint. And he found himself
relegated to the background and eventually resigned from the
Government as a result of his experiences. In short, so far as con-
cerned the atmosphere of its proceedings, the attitude of its
personnel and the popular appeal it made to public opinion the
Geneva Three-Power Disarmament Conference might have been a
AFTER THE WAR 171
sub-committee of naval experts in any one of the intricate and
interminable pourparlers to propose a procedure for preparing a
protocol to provide a protection that must precede any project for
preparing disarmament — which is the way they have at Geneva.
GENEVA CONFERENCE DEADLOCKS
As we have seen, the Washington Conference succeeded because
it opened with an impetus that carried it to its first objective —
limitation in capital ships — though it failed to get further. In this
second offensive for limitation in cruisers there was no such pre-
liminary barrage of Big Guns to break up the wire entanglements of
the experts ; and no initial impetus.
The opening proposal of President Coolidge was, as anticipated
and as in principle already agreed, that competitive building should
be for ever eliminated by extending the ratios of the Washington
Agreement to all other classes of vessels. But no one who had
followed the course of cruiser construction and the campaigns of
the Navy Leagues since the Washington Conference can have
supposed that the application of this agreed principle could be
safely left to naval officers whose public duty and private delight
it would be to score a technical trick or two for their country and
to scale up, not down, the real power of their navies.
It accordingly soon became clear that the Conference was at a
standstill ; though why it should have stuck in so simple a task
was anything but clear. Nor is the public clear about it to this
day. Though anyone who takes the trouble to penetrate the
technical entanglements of the experts and behind them the national
entrenchments of the delegations, and analyse the real aims of either
party, will soon see that the failure of the Conference was caused not
only by the character of the representatives on either side, which
made them concentrate on conflicting policies and not on the
common purpose, but also by the absence of any coercion such as
was supplied at Washington by the American capital ships. The
Geneva Conference not only lost direction, but lacked driving
power.
We will first briefly summarize the proposals of the parties and
then examine what was behind them. The Americans applied the
172 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
agreed principle by extending the Washington ratio to auxiliary
classes thus defined and delimited : —
In thousand tons
Cruisers to be restricted from 250 to 300 for British and Americans
,, „ from 150 to 180 for Japanese
Destroyers „ from 200 to 250 for British and Americans
„ from 120 to 150 for Japanese
Submarines „ from 60 to 90 for British and Americans
„ „ from 36 to 54 for Japanese
No limitation was imposed on the number or size of vessels within
the total tonnage limitation.
The British proposals were very technical, but may be summarized
thus : —
For capital ships —
A reduction of size and armament with an extension of life for those
already built from twenty to twenty-six years. *
For auxiliary ships —
A restriction of size and armament and an extension of life for all
classes to twenty-four years for light cruisers — twenty years for
destroyers — and fifteen years for submarines.
An application of the 5-5-3. ratio to 10,000-ton cruisers carrying 8-inch
guns with a limitation of their number.
A restriction of " police " cruisers to 7,500 tons with 6-inch guns but
without limitation of numbers by ratio.
A division of submarines into an offensive class of 1600 tons and a defen-
sive class of 600 tons, each with 5-inch guns, the number to be limited
as might be agreed. Total abolition was still favoured ; but was
considered impracticable.
A classification of other types with a view to their limitation by classes.
The Japanese proposals broadly speaking stereotyped the status
quo ; further disarmament being derived from the disappearance
of tonnage on reaching the age limit.
These proposals were dissected and discussed all July and a pro-
visional agreement was reached as to flotilla leaders, destroyers, and
submarines. No agreement could be attained between the differing
position and policies of British and Americans as to cruisers. The
Americans remained rigidly by their right to use their total for
1 This was practically the same proposal as that made by Lord Cushenden, on
behalf of the British Government, for capital ships only, during the meeting of the
Preparatory Disarmament Conference at Geneva in March, 1928,
APT£R TH£ WAR m
large cruisers. The British revolved round their requirement of an
unlimited or at least very large number of small cruisers.
The British did once succeed in manoeuvring Mr. Gibson into a
concession that if the British and Japanese agreed the Americans
might accede. And the Japanese were brought to a sort of accept-
ance of a British plan in the nature of a very complicated com-
promise. But as thereunder large cruisers over 10,000 tons were to
be limited to twelve in number and the smaller were left practically
ad lib. the Americans refused to agree.
The Americans clung to their " simple arithmetical ratio " and
refused resolutely to be drawn into explorations of the British
proposals which had been worked out in respect of every kind of
warship from battleship to submarine, with careful estimates of
distance, range and objective [Times, 6th July, 1927). The Ameri-
cans probably felt that in navigating through these technicalities
the British were their masters. And the very care with which the
British proposals had evidently been prepared was a cause of
suspicion.
GENEVA CONFERENCE — BRITISH CASE
On examination of the respective pleadings put forward for
public consumption, we see at once that the British had a case.
They could plead that they had demobilized and destroyed nearly
two million tons of war fleets, that they had 130,000 miles of sea
commercial communications to police, that their supplies were
wholly dependent on these communications as were those of no
other State ; that they had surrendered supremacy in all warships
of first and second-class fighting power ; and that the third class of
7500-ton cruisers were no menace to peace.
The British case did not only express the ambitions of admirals
but also the very genuine apprehensions of the British people. These
fears are well summarized in the speech of Mr. Bridgeman, a typical
Englishman both in his line of thought and in his limitations [Third
Plen. Sess., Document cmd. 2964, 1927) as follows :
" We have stated that the geographical position of our Mother Country
and of the Dominions must be borne in mind. We said so in accepting
President Coolidge's invitation and we have frequently repeated that a
174 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
number of small cruisers are of vital necessity to an Empire whose
widely scattered parts are divided from each other by seas and oceans
and whose most populous parts are dependent for their daily bread on
sea-borne trade, and would perish if we failed to protect it. No doubt
it is not easy for countries differently placed fully to realise our feelings
in this matter. But no Briton who was at home during the war, at its
most anxious time, will forget the feeling that the situation brought
home to us. Month by month we found our rations of bread, meat and
sugar and other articles being lowered, and we could see the spectre of
starvation slowly approaching. Is it to be wondered at that every one of
us feels that it is a duty to make what provision we can to protect ourselves
and our children against a recurrence of such a danger."
GENEVA CONFERENCE — AMERICAN COUNTER-CASE
On the other hand the American delegate, Admiral Jones, could
claim that the domestic ocean-going trade of the United States is
half as much again as the whole foreign trade of Great Britain
(Fourth of July Speech, Geneva). But, on the whole, the American
counter-case was not so convincing ; namely, that America must
have large cruisers of wide radius of action owing to her compara-
tive scarcity of naval bases.
GENEVA CONFERENCE— THE REAL CONFLICT
It seemed at first sight indeed unreasonable that America should
dictate to the British what the size and strength of their cruisers
should be. But, if we look a little deeper into the meaning of Mr.
Bridgeman's proposals, we find that there was some excuse for the
American suspicion that this simple country gentleman, with his
twinkling blue eyes and genial air, could stack the cards in his own
favour and slip in a Joker with the best of them. His smile was
disarming ; but his disarming went no deeper than his smile.
The proposals he put forward accepted the principle of parity —
for capital ships — and indeed went beyond the Conference agenda
in proposing a further disarmament in them by extending their life
and reducing their size and guns. But it was for the obvious reasons
that the British had already the two most powerful capital ships
afloat, Rodney and Nelson, and could not afford to build any more
of these costly contraptions. His proposals only extended the
AFTER THE WAR 175
principle of parity and limitation to large cruisers, in which the
British were in a similar position. And having accepted this agreed
principle in respect of large vessels, in which the British were at a
hopeless disadvantage in a future free building competition ; and
having made all the play possible with this concession as an economy
of £50,000,000 to future British budgets and an extension of the
Washington Treaty, the British proposals unobtrusively reserved
the right of unrestricted building in the weapon of most advantage
to themselves — light cruisers. For in this craft man-power — in
which the British are still first — was all-important ; and money-
power — in which they are now second — mattered less. And this
military consideration lies behind the controversy over gun calibres.
For the 6-inch gun is the largest calibre that can be man-handled.
The 8-inch gun requires an expensive mechanism.
In short, the principle underlying the British proposal for the
further reduction in capital ships ; for the division of cruisers into
an " offensive " class of large cruisers, to be limited in parity, and
a " defensive " class of small cruisers of which as many as necessary
were to be built ; for the similar subdivision of submarines and for
the smaller gun calibre, was in all cases the same, namely, to
counteract the superior money-power of the Americans and to
continue commanding the sea.
Therefore, in these " police " cruisers of 7500 tons with 6-inch
guns the British at first allowed no limitation of numbers ; though
later, to meet American protest, a total figure of seventy-one for all
classes of cruisers was suggested and a total limitation of 580,000
tons. It was in this almost unlimited fleet of effective fighting ships
that the Americans saw a nigger in the wood pile. For certainly
these vessels would control the trade routes in a future war ; and,
with the larger cruisers limited in numbers, the greatest possible
advantage would be reaped from the overwhelming number of fast
British liners which, at a pinch, could also be armed with 6-inch
guns and used in the further oceans,
It was not likely that this would escape the Americans. But, in
these Conferences, the game of an obstructive opposition is to
manoeuvre so that if agreement is reached they still have a con-
cealed advantage that can be disclosed and credited to them, and so
that if an agreement is not reached the moral responsibility for
176 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
failure will be thrown on the other side. Thus they stand to win
either way. Also this is a game in which British politicians and
their professional advisers are still champions of the world in the
Geneva tournaments.
When we look into the meaning of the American adherence to
their position we realize that they too were playing a game — but a
bigger one. They realized quite well that the sanction of the whole
Conference — the driving power that alone could effect disarma-
ment— was the potential sea supremacy of a new American navy.
They realized that, in allowing at Washington an agreement as to
capital ships alone, the Americans had surrendered the greater part
of the bargaining power given them by their financial superiority,
and that, if an agreement for limitation on a basis of parity was
now accepted for large cruisers, leaving out cruisers of fighting
efficiency, their bargaining power would be lost altogether. They
also realized that, given parity and limitation in capital ships and
large cruisers only, the British would be as well prepared in money-
power and better provided in man-power for a naval competition
in light cruisers. They also realized that the British had them at a
disadvantage and were holding them under menace of a complete
failure of the Conference which the Americans had called, but that
if they did accept an agreement that might, in the end, be worse for
disarmament than failure.
This realization, combined with the excessive realization of
responsibility felt by professional representatives with no political
leader, explains the take-it-or-leave-it attitude of the Americans,
as well as their rather rigid adherence to their primary position.
This was attributed by our Press to their entourage of American
correspondents, whose reports were generally tail twisting and some-
times truth twisting, as well as to the Big Navy ambitions of their
Admirals. But a certain stiffness is essential when you have your
back to the wall and will be stood against it by your chiefs if you
give away too much.
When the eleventh-hour showdown came it would seem that the
American Delegation was not unreasonable, that agreement was
reached as to a liberal allowance of 7500-ton cruisers, and that the
only point unsettled was whether they should carry 6-inch or 8-inch
guns.
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AFTER THE WAR 177
GENEVA CONFERENCE — HOW IT COLLAPSED
It was at this point that the British Delegation were recalled to
confer with the Cabinet.
Lord Cecil protested ; but the Delegation was none the less
recalled and remained ten days in London, while their colleagues
cooled their heels in a heat-wave at Geneva.
The proposal that the British put forward on their return was for
a maximum of no less than 590,000 tons new construction, plus
25 per cent, of existing tonnage, of which 120,000 tons should be in
twelve large cruisers. This provoked an American enquiry as to why
the British, who were ready at Washington to accept, through Lord
Balfour, 450,000 tons for all auxiliary craft, now asked for 647,000
tons more. Lord Balfour afterwards explained that his acceptance
referred to " vessels auxiliary and necessary to the Battle Fleet."
But the British contention that the Washington Treaty and parity
covered only the battle fleets, and not the navies as a whole, is one
of the points that most excite American annoyance.
None the less, negotiations proceeded, and the conflict over the
calibre of the cruiser guns could have been closed very sensibly by
compromising on a 7-inch gun. But this was disallowed by the
British Government
And there still remained a more serious difference.
The British global maximum for all auxiliaries was inacceptable
to the Americans, not only because it seemed to them excessive, but
because it was not classified as to ships. That is, the British might
have spent on small cruisers what they saved on large cruisers and
on submarines. The British, on the other hand, would not accept
the American global maximum for cruisers because it was not
classified as to size. That is, the Americans might have used the
whole for ten thousand tonners which would dominate the British.
So the Americans now proposed a procedure that gave the British
a power of releasing themselves should the Americans take such
action. But this also was refused by the British Government.
The Americans thereupon made up their minds that the British
were not meaning business. When the Japanese tried to save the
situation at the eleventh hour with a proposal for an agreement as to
178 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
" a naval holiday " until the expiration of the Washington Treaty
" moratorium " in 1931, this was refused by them. And it might
well have been misinterpreted as merely a manoeuvre to keep them
in a position with which they were not satisfied and to prevent them
using their money power to get out of it.
So the Conference was closed by the Americans with a formal
statement of the President summarizing its differences in a very fair
and clear statement of how the Conference broke up ; which, however,
tells us little as to why it broke down. For that we must look behind
the controversies in the Conference and get an insight into a conflict
that had arisen in the British Cabinet.
GENEVA CONFERENCE — WHY IT COLLAPSED
The revolt of the Admiralty and of authoritative opinion in the
ruling class against the principle of parity had been carried into
the Conservative Cabinet. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr.
Churchill, was recognized as a recruit to this revolt when, in a speech
at the Mansion House (12th July, 1927), he said, at a critical stage
of the Conference :
" I should regard it as the paramount duty of the British Exchequer,
in priority to all other considerations, to find any money that was really
needed to safeguard those sea-borne food supplies without which neither
the life nor the independence of the British nation could continue."
He thus cut the ground from under the Conference by putting the
power of the Purse on the side of naval expenditure instead of on
that of naval economy. The significance of this did not escape
the Americans, who had long suspected that the British did not
mean, and never had meant, to accept parity in sea power ; but
only parity in the more costly mechanical weapons in which they
could not compete with the Americans. They accordingly issued
the following warning through the Times correspondent (5th July,
1927) :
" It is felt strongly in responsible quarters here that a good purpose
will be served by the publication abroad of the following authoritative
statement : ' The United States cannot, and will not, accept anything
short of parity with Great Britain in all classes of ships.' The words, of
course, are those of the man best entitled to speak from Washington for
AFTER THE WAR 179
the United States Government, and they reflect, as they are intended to
reflect, the surprise and displeasure — I am faithfully reporting what has
been made known to me in the last two days — which what is considered
here the apparent unwillingness of the British Government to concede
full equality at sea with the United States has caused.
" I am given to understand that, if the necessity should arise, the
United States Government would be prepared to remind the Powers
assembled at Geneva of what occurred at the second Plenary Session of
the Washington Conference on November 15th, 1921. The proposals
before that session did not refer to battleships and aeroplane carriers
alone, but were all-inclusive. Of them Lord Balfour, for Great Britain,
said :
" ' We think that the proportion between the various countries is
acceptable ; we think the limitation of amounts is reasonable ; we think
it should be accepted ; we firmly believe that it will be accepted.'
" Following him came Admiral Baron Kato, for Japan, 'gladly accepting
the proposal in principle.' It is earnestly hoped at Washington that it
may not later be found desirable to ask what, if any, change has come
about in the relations of the principal naval Powers or in naval technique
which would invalidate in 1927 the assurances of 1921."
In response, Sir Austen Chamberlain, in the House of Commons,
formally repudiated any intention of renouncing the principle of
parity (28th July, 1927). But all the same it was not maintained.
Mr. Churchill is a stronger man than Sir Austen ; and as this rever-
sion of policy led to the resignation of Lord Cecil, we have a
revelation of what happened in the Cabinet.
We will let the British delegate, Lord Cecil, tell the story in his
own words, as he told it to Parliament :
" Before we set out there was a discussion in the Committee of Imperial
Defence as to the case that we were to lay before the Conference. In
the course of that discussion the question was raised whether we were
to admit that the Americans were entitled to equality in cruisers on the
same model as that which had been conceded to them in battleships. I
certainly understood — I may have been wrong — that influential members
of the Committee expressed the view that unless we conceded this it was
no use going to Geneva."
After criticizing the want of preparations he continues :
" The Americans attached great importance to what they called
' parity ' — that is to say, equality of auxiliary craft on the same lines as
the equality of battleships agreed upon at Washington. The first Lord
180 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
of the Admiralty and his advisers at Geneva saw no great objection to
accepting the American contention on this point, and after a few days
he made it quite clear that, though we doubted whether the American
need for cruisers was as great as ours, we had no objection to their building
up to our limit if they wished to do so. It was, of course, understood
that this should be part of the agreement that we were then negotiating.
Unfortunately this decision caused great anxiety to some of our colleagues,
though we had in fact received express authority from the Cabinet to
agree to it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, for instance, has since
the breakdown of the Conference stated specifically :
" ' Therefore we are not able now — and I hope at no future time — to
embody in a solemn international agreement any words which would
bind us to the principle of mathematical parity in naval strength.
Though I do not in the least agree with him, I am quite sure that my
right hon. friend is convinced that this warning is essential to the safety
of this country. I am equally sure that, if persisted in, it bangs, bolts
and bars the door against any hope of a further agreement with the
United States on naval armaments.'
" My right hon. friend is a very forceful personality and I have no
doubt that from the moment that he realised that we had at Geneva
agreed to what he calls the principle of mathematical parity — that is
to say, that we had extended to cruisers the standard accepted for
battleships — he began to press on his colleagues the necessity of avoiding
the consequences of what he regarded as a disastrous concession.
" Accordingly we began to receive telegrams which seemed to indicate
that the Cabinet were dissatisfied. At last they culminated in a request
to us to return home for consultation. We pointed out that such a
proceeding would be very bad for the success of the negotiations, and for
the time being we were allowed to remain."
He then reviews the negotiations as to cruisers and guns and
continues :
" I was very much disturbed. Agreement seemed to me to be in sight,
and I felt that if there were to be an adjournment for some days it was only
too likely that the opportunity would pass. However, the wording of
the summons left us no alternative but to obey. When we got home we
found, as I have already intimated, that certain members of the Cabinet
strongly took the view afterwards expressed in public by the Chancellor
of the Exchequer. They thought that it would be most dangerous to
have stated in the Treaty that the Americans were entitled to mathema-
tical parity in auxiliary vessels. These Ministers clearly intimated that
they preferred no agreement to one embodying that principle.
" It was to meet these views that the Cabinet decided, against my
AFTER THE WAR 181
opinion, to make the statement read in both Houses of Parliament
reserving, in effect, full liberty of action to this country on the question
of parity at the end of any period for which an agreement might be
made. I objected on the ground that it was unnecessary and likely to
increase the difficulties of negotiations. Beyond that the Cabinet
decided that we were to continue the negotiations broadly on the lines
theretofore adopted.
" There was a second meeting of the Cabinet to complete our instruc-
tions, and it was at this meeting that the question of whether we should
insist on the 6-inch gun came up for decision. Between the two meetings
of the Cabinet telegrams had come from America indicating that the
United States attached vital importance to the retention of the right to
put 8-inch guns in any cruiser. I confess that the American attitude on
this question seemed to me to be entirely wrong and the reasons advanced
for it quite unconvincing. But it also seemed to me madness to allow
the negotiations to break down on such a point. It was therefore with
amazement that I heard the majority of my colleagues decide to insist
on a 6-inch gun, even if it meant the breakdown of the negotiations.
It was evident to me that such a decision could only be come to by men
who took a very different view of the importance of an agreement with the
United States on this matter from that which I did. Accordingly I
immediately suggested to my colleagues that they should send someone
else to Geneva in my place. When it was pointed out that such a change
in the middle of negotiations would remove the last chance of success,
I told them that I would return with Mr. Bridgeman, but that if the
negotiations failed on this point about the guns, as I felt sure they would,
I must reserve my full liberty to resign, or words to that effect.
" We returned to Geneva. As soon as we arrived there it became clear
that without a compromise on the 8-inch gun question there was no hope
of agreement, and I personally so informed the Cabinet. At the same time
we suggested, as a possible way out of the difficulty, the adoption of a
7-inch gun. In reply we received a telegram rejecting this suggestion
and telling us in so many words that we were not to offer any compromise
on the 8-inch gun. A day or two later the Americans put forward the
suggestion that, if any party so utilised its rights under the Treaty as
to cause anxiety to another party, a conference might be held and, if
no agreement were come to, the Treaty should terminate. We were
anxious to reply by giving to this suggestion a more specific reference
to the 8-inch gun. The effect would have been to postpone the decision
of the question until the Americans actually decided to arm the secondary
cruisers with 8-inch guns. This also the Government rejected. The
Conference consequently broke down." (Hansard, Vol. 69, No. 71,
pp. 91-94.)
18a FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
The villain of the piece was, therefore, Mr. Winston Churchill. As
Chancellor of the Exchequer he was pre-eminently responsible for
economy ; and, as poacher turned gamekeeper, he has not been
unsuccessful. But two years in the heavy gold embroidered robes
of the Chancellor have not quelled his ebullient military enthusiasms.
He can still play at being a Napoleon or a Nelson and he is still, at
the most awkward moments, the enfant terrible who can imagine
his nursery table is the world, only that now he imagines the world
is his nursery table.
Here we have an example of that myopic meglomania peculiar
to crowned heads and Conservative henchmen who have lived all
their lives in the exercise of arbitrary authority. We see it, for
example, in the attitude of George III towards the American
colonists in those private letters and memoranda just published by
Sir John Fortescue. The same complete concentration on a narrow
and naif point of view ; patriotic, no doubt, though hopelessly
prejudiced. But George was half a German. There is less excuse
for Mr. Churchill, who is half an American. He could be the man of
the moment if only he would devote his great capacities and strong
character to a restoration of relations between the two peoples, and
to a reconstruction of British policy more in relation to the require-
ments of the present day. But so far he has been about as enlightened
in this matter as one of the " King's Friends " of the eighteenth
century.
Because that point of view was in power the British in the eighteenth
century lost their association with Americans within one Imperial
Federation. If that point of view persists much longer it will ruin
any chance in this twentieth century of an association between
Britain and America in any international confederation.
If Mr. Churchill was the villain — the victim was Lord Cecil ; and
close on the collapse of the Conference there followed the resignation
from the Conservative Government of its " Minister for International
Affairs," and the statement as to the reason for this resignation
reproduced above. Its punctilious phraseology cannot conceal
the indignation of this most clear-sighted and cool-headed of
Conservatives.
Lord Cecil has given his whole time and great talents to the
League. But he is too good a statesman not to see that the interest
AFTER THE WAR 183
of his country and of civilization can be sought at sea in an associa-
tion with the United States that is in no way competitive with the
League and may be made co-operative with it. Yet, even the ex-
Minister of Blockade apparently still fails to see the real significance
of the events in which he played so prominent a part. The Noble
Lord tries to lay all the blame on the Big Navy advocates in both
countries and their political and industrial supporters. The inner
history of the Geneva Conference has only been exposed in part as
the result of his resignation. And what the British and American
publics and the rest of the world are told is that the reason for the
breakdown was this demand of the Admiralty for seventy-one cruisers,
and the American insistence on arming their quota of ships with
8-inch guns instead of 6-inch guns.
GENEVA CONFERENCE— WHERE IT COLLAPSED
Yet this bickering about the calibre of guns and the number of
minor war vessels is not the real cause of the trouble. Nor is it even
the insistence of the Americans ona" mathematical parity," and
our British insistence on what we will call a " metaphysical parity."
We have to find something more fundamental to account for the
war clouds that have darkened the sky, ever since, on both sides of
the Atlantic.
That fundamental cause of failure will be found, we suggest, in
these two facts ; that Great Britain, realizing that she had lost
command of the sea at Washington in terms of battleships, was
trying to recover it in terms of cruisers ; and that America, realizing
that she had lost Freedom of the Seas at Versailles by a deficiency
in moral power, was trying to restore it to the peace terms by a
dominance of money-power. Great Britain, unfortunately failing
to see that the two aims were not antagonistic, frustrated the
American effort for the second time. President Coolidge thus
reported in his message to Congress (6th December, 1927) —
" We were granted much co-operation by Japan — but we were unable
to come to an agreement with Great Britain."
And if co-operation between British and Americans had thus
failed, it was we British who broke it down and we British who must
build it up again.
1 84 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
It is to be hoped, however, that the next American President will
try again before the fatal date of 1931 when the progress " pegged "
by the Washington Treaty will be again put in question. And it is
to be hoped that there will then be a British Government who will
loyally co-operate with America in making a peace of the seas.
Both sides are sadder and wiser for the Geneva failure. One lesson,
let us hope, is at least learnt for good and all. Clemenceau, at a
crisis of the war, is reported as saying : " This war is too serious to
be left to the Generals." Let Washington and London on the next
occasion of a naval disarmament Conference say — " This peace is
too serious to be left to the Admirals."
PROPOSAL FOR PROHIBITING SUBMARINES
Since the Geneva Conference the Americans have made one more
move that need not be opposed by even the bluest of the Blue- water
School that has made Whitehall its quarter-deck. For Mr. Secretary
Kellogg in February 1928, announced that the —
44 United States Government would be prepared to sign a Treaty with
all the powers of the world, prohibiting the use of submarines entirely."
And this might possibly be made a step towards that much larger
disarmament between England and America that we have in mind.
For the position now is that the two leading naval and commercial
powers are agreed that, in the interests of humanity and peace, the
submarine should be declared illegal.
Submarines are not only horrible in war — in the last they drowned
thousands of non-combatants — but they occasionally horrify us
all in peace by cruelly drowning their crews. And as commerce
destroyers they are the worst menace to Freedom of the Seas. A
half-hearted attempt was made by the British Delegation at the
Paris Peace Conference to extend the inhibition on building sub-
marines, imposed on Germany, to the rest of the world. Unsuccessful
then, it was renewed again by the British delegates at the
Washington Conference of 192 1, when they proposed " the total and
final abolition of the submarine." But, after two days' debate,
Lord Balfour found that the British proposal would not then get
American support. A compromise was all that could be got ; and
in the annex to the Washington Treaty the five signatory Powers
AFTER THE WAR 185
recognized the inherent barbarity of the submarine as a commerce
destroyer. The following Art. IV of Chapter III of the miscellaneous
provisions of the Treaty was signed by France's representatives, with
the delegates of the other four naval Powers, but never ratified by
the French Government.
" The Signatory Powers recognise the practical impossibility of using
submarines as commerce destroyers without violating, as they were
violated in the recent war of 1914-1918, the requirements universally
accepted by civilised nations for the protection of the lives of neutrals
and non-combatants, and to the end that the prohibition of the use of
submarines as commerce destroyers shall be universally accepted as a
part of the law of nations, they now accept that prohibition as henceforth
binding as between themselves and they invite all other nations to
adhere thereto."
•
This is simply a return to and re-statement of the old rules regulat-
ing the rights of belligerents in sailing-ship days — namely, that a
merchant vessel must be summoned to stop and searched or sent to
port before she could be seized, that she must not be attacked unless
refusing or resisting, and that she must not be sunk until the passen-
gers and crew had been placed in safety. These rules, if rigorously
respected by a belligerent, would practically prevent their submarines
from acting as cruisers for the control of commerce. This the Germans
found out very soon in the last war, and Admiral von Scheer refused
even to allow the submarines under his command to act against
merchant ships when, in deference to American pressure, they were
ordered to observe these rules by the German High Command. The
proposed rules only come into force when ratified by all the signa-
tories, and France has never ratified them ; so that they are not
worth the paper they are written on. Furthermore, they have been
strongly attacked in the French press and by French jurists and
naval experts.
France and Italy as secondary sea Powers were then, and still are,
obstinately opposed to a renunciation or even to any restriction of
submarine warfare. In this they would be supported by other
minor sea powers ; and any regulation of the submarine through any
organization of the League is consequently most improbable.
The British interest both as a naval and as a neutral Power is to
restrict or remove this menace to Freedom of the Seas as far as is
186 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
practically possible. The British policy was stated by the First
Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Bridgeman, in his opening speech at
the Geneva Conference :
" Great Britain has not changed her mind since the Washington
Conference of 1921, when her delegates expressed their willingness to
agree to the discontinuance of submarines in warfare, but they recognise
that Powers which possess fewer of the larger vessels of war regard the
possession of submarines as a valuable weapon of defence."
He then went on to propose a compromise such as might be calculated
to conciliate French opposition, or at least, to counteract to some
extent the menace of French submarine construction — namely, an
artificial restriction of the size of submarines in the future and their
division into a " defensive " class to be permitted, and an " offen-
sive " class to be prohibited. But this sort of diplomatizing will
never achieve a reform that requires the directness and driving
power of a popular appeal.
Mr. Kellogg is right in going for straight prohibition. The alliance
between humanitarian pacifism and professional sailors of the old
school, both equally disliking this novel and cruel weapon, would
create a strong body of public opinion. If the prohibition were
adopted by the three leading Sea Powers, it might be practically
imposed on the secondary Sea Powers, much as the prohibition of
privateering was imposed on them.
There is, of course, a difference. Privateering was obsolete when
it was prohibited ; and in its modern form — the employment of
merchant steamers as auxiliary cruisers under commission — it
still survives. Submarines are a novel weapon of great power and
potentiality that have revolutionized sea warfare. The prohibition
of revolutions of any sort is unsound, wherefore it would be inadvis-
able to make this prohibition a principle of a new international
law of the sea. For principles of law must not run counter to
progress, even when progress is unpleasant. But policy is a different
thing ; and policy as we have shown, is the basis of international
law, rather than principle. Such a policy would have moreover the
same moral basis as the prohibition of privateering. Privateering
was odious to the mercantile communities, like the British, because
it arose out of reprisals and easily relapsed into piracy. Submarine
commerce destiuction also arises out of reprisals and has all the
AFTER THE WAR 187
inhuman features of piracy. It is now associated in the public mind
with that age-long enemy of Freedom of the Seas. And it is for this
reason that Germany is more resigned to this restriction of the Peace
Treaty than to any other.
An agreement of Americans and British to prohibit the use of the
submarine might well be a first step towards their association for
Freedom of the Seas. If supported, as is probable, by the Japanese
it might even be possible to secure the adhesion of secondary sea
Powers who now rely on the submarine as their principal
naval weapon. And even if such adhesion were withheld, the
command of the seas enjoyed by the " Armed Neutrality " of the
British and American navies would ensure the Freedom of the Seas
from destruction of neutral commerce by belligerent submarines.
If, on the other hand, Britain and America remain apart, not only
can nothing be done to restrict submarines as we wish, but, as
American sea power becomes superior to British, the British will
compete, not in cruisers, already a semi-obsolete weapon, but in
submarines, the weapon of the poorer power. And that is a prospect
which will appeal as little to British sailors as it will to American
shippers.
PROPOSAL FOR PROHIBITING AEROPLANES
We have pointed out that the use of aeroplanes against merchant
ships in some future war may be as great a surprise as was the use of
submarines in the last war — a danger that appears to have been too
much overlooked. At the Washington Naval Conference an exhaus-
tive examination was made of the air strengths of the Five Powers
invited, and a highly expert committee, including Major-General
Mason Patrick of the United States Air Service and Air Vice-Marshal
Higgins of the Royal Air Force, was set up.
The proposal made at Washington by the Italian delegate that
some limit might be agreed upon as to the number of pilots in the
permanent military establishments was a practical proposal.
But the Committee very sensibly decided that it would be im-
practicable to set effective limits on the air strength of the five
Powers or of other nations. For this can only be done by limiting
the growth and development of civil aviation which would be both
188 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
reactionary and unrealizable. The submarine has at present mainly
a military purpose. But the aeroplane has civil and commercial
possibilities closely bound up with the progress of civilization.
Restrictions based on the non-subsidization of commercial aviation
companies by governments, the limitation of the appropriations for
air weapons in the national budgets of the countries concerned, and
the like, could be easily evaded and would be, in any case, useless.
The German Air Force is rigidly proscribed under the Treaty of
Versailles. But the impossibility of prohibiting civil aviation in
Germany was recognized, and that country leads the world to-day in
civil aviation and could lead it to-morrow in military aviation.
For it is recognized by every military general staff in the world that
Germany, with a great number of trained pilots, and artificers, with
the national u air sense " of her people, and with well-found and
flourishing aircraft factories, could rearm in the air in a very short
time.
There is, therefore, no possibility or purpose in prohibiting or
restricting the construction or operations of military aeroplanes
as a principle of international law. But again, as in the case of the
submarine, policy is a different matter. There is nothing to prevent
Great Britain and America enlarging their declaration with regard
to the use of submarines against merchant shipping to aeroplanes,
seaplanes, dirigible balloons and other flying machines ; and
solemnly agreeing neither to use their aircraft against mercantile
shipping when belligerent, nor to allow of their being used against
their own when neutral.
GENEVA FAILURE— BRITISH ATTITUDE
The full gravity of the failure of the Geneva Conference was not
at the time, and still is not, realized by the British governing class.
With some exceptions, the Civil Service, the City, the Clubs, the
Foreign office and Admiralty, the coteries and cliques, all regarded
it as merely one more disarmament pow-wow for the benefit of party
politics that had come to its proper and preordained conclusion.
For, almost every year, and sometimes twice in a twelve-month,
there assembles in the finest Swiss scenery and in the most comfort-
able of continental cities some Committee or Commission or Council
AFTER THE WAR 189
of the League for the discussion of disarmament. In these peaceful
surroundings the experts bicker about security and sanctions,
entangle themselves endlessly in technicalities as to military and
naval armaments, and try to trick each other in negotiations that are
seeking, not disarmament, but military advantage. Nothing is ever
done, nothing is ever even said, of serious consequence ; except when
some Russian envoy, whose presence is regarded with mixed curiosity
and resentment, has the bad taste to talk as though disarmament
were really under discussion. These discussions serve no more
useful purpose than in providing perorations for speeches showing
how peace is being prosecuted on the most patriotic lines, or pretexts
for an expenditure on armaments greater (in present day values) than
before the war.
And this Geneva Naval Conference was confused, naturally
enough, by British opinion with one of those pleasant little conversa-
ziones of the League. The Labour Press and Party protested at
British policy and pointed our the probable consequences. But the
ruling class are either indifferent to or ignorant of Labour opinion ;
and the British public has not yet realized the meaning of the shift
in sea power since the war. Nevertheless British public opinion was,
for the moment, distressed at the failure of the Conference. Even
the Nationalist Daily Mail wrote :
" Men and women who realise the paramount importance of maintaining
peace are beginning to look to other political leaders for the initiative
and guidance which the present Conservative Government has so signally
failed to supply."
" The Moving Finger writes ; and, having writ,
Moves on. Nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it."
Certainly no shedding of tears, nor even the dropping of three light
cruisers has been able as yet to restore the British relations with
Americans. But the writing on the wall of the most moving finger
of the hidden hand may possibly portend the end of a decadent
dynasty.
190 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
GENEVA FAILURE— AMERICAN ACTION
In America the effect was very different. There, the failure of the
Conference made many previous pacifists rally to the ranks of the
Big Navy movement. For it looked as though agreement with the
British was hopeless and as if the best guarantee of peace was a
powerful American fleet.
We are now faced with a set purpose in America to deprive us
of our naval command of the sea ; and we cannot prevent it.
But we are also faced with the prospect that America will set about
the far more difficult task of depriving us of our carrying trade.
The building up of a mercantile marine in competition with the
British is a costly and difficult undertaking. But the Germans did
it before the Great War ; so did the Americans before the Civil War ;
and both were crowding us seriously when their competition was
ended by war. The present handicap on American carrying competi-
tion is artificial and can be ended if the country wishes. That it
may so wish is evident from the following statement as to a Bill for
making a mercantile marine by a " Democratic Leader " and
Senator " devoted to the cause of Anglo-American friendship."
(Times, 2nd February, 1928) :
" For me (said this Senator), the passage of this measure is ultimately
and inseparably connected with the failure of Great Britain and the
United States to reach a naval agreement at Geneva.
" I believe supremacy at sea should be held neither by Great Britain
nor by ourselves — either would be too provocative and too dangerous.
I believe there should be, and still hope there will be, an agreement
embodying reasonable and effective naval equality, but I know it will
never be reached while we leave the arrangement of it to debating teams
rather than negotiators.
"lam one of those who believe with old John Randolph of Roankeo
that the American is a land animal. It still seems to me that if he is to
have a merchant marine he will have to secure it by deliberate manufac-
ture, and not by the operation of normal processes. Personally, I do not
like this manufacture, but it seems to me that Great Britain is leaving
us no choice. Unless the two countries can get together, the United
States must have not only a Navy fully equal to the British but a merchant
AFTER THE WAR 191
marine capable of carrying every ton of American goods. A sufficient
proportion of such ships, moreover, should be speedy vessels able to carry
6-inch guns."
And if responsible and friendly statesmen thus expressed them-
selves, the popular press in American did not mince matters. Indeed,
on Navy Day (28th October, 1927) there was what appeared to be a
concerted outburst in a number of leading American papers in sup-
port of the proposed new Armada. We will give extracts from
two of these. The Washington Post expressed itself editorially as
follows :
" The United States is entitled to an absolutely free field for foreign
commerce. When foreign Powers are at war the United States has a
right to remain neutral and carry on neutral commerce without inter-
ference. It must have a Navy sufficiently strong to enforce its neutral
rights. Its flag becomes a despised rag, if its people do not keep it
inviolable upon every sea."
And later :
" War between Great Britain and other foreign Powers under modern
conditions would either compel the United States to enter the war on
one side or see its neutral commerce swept away."
The New York Herald-Tribune, after making out a case for the
building of sufficient 10,000-ton cruisers to bring the American Navy
up to numerical parity with the British Navy, summed up the case
as follows :
" We need a Navy competent to protect our enormous commerce, our
merchant marine and our sea communications. We have no such Navy
now. But we can have it if we want it. We are free to build it. And
we are certainly rich enough to do it."
If the Big Navy boosters can blow their trumpet like any Roland,
the British Navy League can give them an Oliver. We need only
cite and shall not quote that Navy League pamphlet —
" Nelson gave us the command of the Sea over a century ago. Are
we going to keep it ? "
192 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
AMERICAN BIG NAVY BUILDING
The trouble is that we shall have to pay for it. No one is going
to give it us gratis. The American naval estimates for 1928 as first
introduced, provided for an expenditure of £145,000,000 for a cruiser
fleet of forty-three vessels, and for over seventy new warships in
all, the same number asked for by our admiralty at Geneva. As
Mr. Wilbur said (nth January, 1928) : " America needs a first-class
Navy," and he went on to explain that these forty-three cruisers
would consist of twenty-five 10,000 tonners, with 8-inch guns, in
addition to the eight already provided, and ten 7500-ton cruisers.
Five new aircraft carriers were also included and a total cruiser
tonnage of 600,000 tons was contemplated, just double the maximum
proposed at Geneva. He concluded :
" This programme of twenty-five cruisers, five aircraft carriers, nine
destroyer leaders and thirty-two submarines is in no way competitive,
but is based on the*needs of the United States Navy as determined by
technical advice."
Which contrasts painfully with the statement of Mr. French, Chair-
man of the House Naval Committee, only a year earlier, but
before the Geneva Conference, on presenting the previous naval
estimates.
" The people of Great Britain depend, and must depend, on the outside
world. Their dependency is for food, clothing, structural material, fuel
and fuel oil. Great Britain must maintain open to its ships the lanes of
the sea. To do this Great Britain must have naval bases ; and,
more than the United States, is in need of types of ships such as
cruisers."
NAVAL COMPETITION — A CHECK AND A CHANCE
The difference between these two positions is the measure of the
distance that the two people diverged in those disastrous weeks at
Geneva. Happily, some of that distance has now been retraced.
The British Government, by dropping the construction of two
cruisers, and then a third, made the first move to make good
AFTER THE WAR 193
the damage it had done. The Americans have now responded,
as we may always rely on them to respond to any generous
gesture.
The tremendous construction programme outlined above, and the
insistence of the Naval Affairs Committee that this construction
should be undertaken to a time limit, had rallied economist and
pacifist opinion in America to the support of President Coolidge.
The war dope in the Press had, for once, been overdone and the
public stomach rejected it. The Secretary of the Navy put up a
spirited fight. He pointed out that the total cost was only half the
annual expenditure of American women on cosmetics. " There
are times," he said, " when gunpowder is worth more than face
powder." But nowadays men and women find face-powder on the
whole less disfiguring For, after heated debates in the Naval Affairs
Committee of the House and much hard lobbying, the Moderates
won a signal success (23rd February, 1928). The programme, as it
will be reported out, and as it will probably be passed by the House,
has been considerably cut down. The ten-thousand ton cruisers are
reduced from twenty-five to fifteen, and the aircraft carriers from
five to one ; the destroyers are left at the twelve authorized under
the 1 91 6 programme, and all but two submarines are dropped. The
total expenditure is reduced from £145,000,000 to £54,000,000. The
new vessels are to be laid down in three years (aircraft carriers in
two) and completed in six. But an even more promising provision
is that that Bill, as ultimately reported to Congress, will contain a
provision as follows :
" In the event of an agreement for the further limitation of naval
armament by an international conference to which the United States is
a signatory, the President is hereby authorized and empowered to suspend,
in whole or in part, any of the naval construction authorized in this
Act."
It will be observed that this discretionary power is allowed to the
President only if a limitation agreement is reached ; not, as originally
suggested, at the mere calling of a conference. This represents
a compromise between those who would have placed no bounds
on the Executive's discretion and those who believed that power
to suspend building should be reserved to Congress. It will be
attacked both in the House and in the Senate, but there is little
194 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
reason to doubt it will be passed in a form substantially as given
above.1
So there we have the response to our overture and an opening for a
further reconciliation. No one can say that the British Government
have not got good value for the cruisers dropped. But it is a drop
in the Atlantic ocean compared to the value they could get if they
followed up the policy of co-operation outlined in the next chapter.
ANGLO-AMERICAN ALIENATION
One of the causes of the naval differences that we have described
between the English and American peoples, and of their political
divergence, is the lack of understanding of each other's points of
view. This is particularly the case with England where, as has
always been the case, notably in the Civil War, there is a totally
false conception of the mental make-up of America among the
British governing class. The explanation is easy. Many more
Americans visit England than English people visit America. For
though English business men perforce go to the United States, though
a few diplomats and journalists are perfunctorily employed at
1 The American Naval Estimates for 1929 amount to over ^74,000,000 as re-
ported to Congress, with the observation that " all indications point to an
appreciable and immediate upward trend."
The vessels in commission in 1929 are given in the Estimates as follows : —
First Line.
Battleships, 16 ; light cruisers, 10 ; aircraft carriers, 2 ; destroyers, 103 ; sub-
marines, 46 ; fleet submarines, 5.
Second Line.
Cruisers, 2 ; light cruisers, 3 ; aircraft carriers, 1 ; mine-layers, 2 ; submarines, 29.
To this must be added 6 light mine-layers, 19 patrol vessels, and 74 auxiliaries,
making a grand total of 318 vessels. The strength of the needed personnel is
estimated as : Active officers (line, staff and warrant), 8,745 '> midshipmen, 1,746 ;
retired officers, 1,690 ; enlisted men, 83,250 ; enlisted men retired, 1,498 ; nurses,
525 — a total of 97,454.
As to aircraft, a five year programme was approved in June, 1926, intended by
annual increments to provide the Navy with 1,000 " useful aeroplanes ". At that
time the Navy possessed 351 craft. The progress made is as follows: July 1st,
1926, aeroplanes, 468 ; July 1st, 1927, 705 aeroplanes ; July 1st, 1928, 750 aero-
planes ; while the number for July 1st, 1929, is estimated at 783.
Two more airships are planned each two and a half times the size of the
Los Angeles, with a maximum cruising radius of 11,200 nautical miles, 782 ft. long
and 132 ft. deep, designed to carry a crew of 16 officers and 45 men, and a
maximum speed of 75 knots.
AFTER THE WAR 195
Washington ; though there is a profitable pilgrim's progress of
academic lecturers and Anglo-American propagandists whose pulpit
or postprandial oratory probably does more harm than good,
and though American public and private hospitality to British
visitors is unbounded — yet there is in America nothing that makes
the same sort of appeal to the British that England makes to
Americans.
The English are great travellers ; but they have an extensive
Empire, and most of those who go abroad for a living make their
way to the Dominions or to Asiatic and African dependencies.
The British who go to the United States go there to become citizens
of that country. The middle-class British families who holiday
abroad rarely go to America. In Switzerland, France, Belgium,
Italy, and North Africa they are patrons ; in America they would
be little better than paupers.
Very few British politicians of Cabinet rank visit America. Lord
Balfour has gone there on diplomatic business more than once with the
happiest results — the last occasion being the Washington Conference.
The present Prime Minister paid a short visit to America in connec-
tion with the debt settlement, with less happy results. Two ex-Prime
Ministers, Mr. Lloyd Goerge and Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, have paid
short visits. Whereas, on the other hand, there is a continual
coming and going between England and Europe of politicians,
diplomatists and journalists in connection with the League Councils
and Committees, international conferences or national ceremonies.
There is far more contact between British statesmen and Germans,
or Frenchmen than there is between British statesmen and
Americans.
ANGLO-AMERICAN AMICABILITY — A SUGGESTION
And the consequences have been as inevitable as invidious.
They affect not only the democratic relationship between the two
peoples in the region of public opinion, but even the diplomatic
relations between the two Governments. Twice in referring in
Parliament to the unfortunate breakdown of the Geneva Naval
Conference the British Foreign Secretary, who is in the best position
to judge, has admitted, frankly enough, that there was not enough
196 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
of what he called diplomatic preparation beforehand. Yet an
American Admiral had specially visited London before the Confer-
ence, and the ordinary diplomatic machinery was working with more
than usual efficiency. Which suggests that there is now a new
diplomatic channel and democratic contract in the Canadian diplo-
matic representative and his staff at Washington. The Canadians
are close to the Americans geographically and cannot fail to under-
stand their point of view. Canada is a bond for peace between
Britain and America, and her mission in Washington might become
a bridge to political confidence and co-operation. We might indeed
do worse than persuade the Canadian Government to release an
important citizen of that Dominion to represent England and the
Empire at Washington when next there is a vacancy at the British
Embassy and to let the Foreign Office be represented by an official
who would be junior to the Canadian representative.
The proposal may seem a revolution in the British Diplomatic
Service. But there are political regions in which moral revolutions
are required ; and though the Canadian envoy might lack somewhat
in diplomatic experience, he would have a certain esoteric election
for dealing with " domestic matters " and the Monroe doctrine.
But no machinery, special or ordinary, can replace a " liaison "
between two countries. It cannot create a real link between two
peoples, or give them a real lead into closer co-operation and mutual
confidence. And this lead has been lacking owing to a want of per-
sonal contact between American and British public men and to a
lack of courage and candour among politicians on both sides, but
especially on this side.
BRITISH ATTITUDE TO AMERICA— A CRITICISM
The public pronouncements of British statesmen are only too
often verbose concealments of their real views. To get at what they
really thought and wanted we have to wait for the publication of
personal memoirs and diaries ; unless such a cataclysm as the late
war brings to the surface buried treasures of truth in colourful
eruption of White Books, Yellow Books, Red Books, and Green
Books.
For example, the Diary of the late Field-Marshal Sir Henry
AFTER THE WAR 197
Wilson, published in 1927, stands for what is, we fear, the typical
British official view of the late President Wilson and the policy he
stood for at the Peace Conference and before it. Compare this
candid soldier's posthumous private diary and what his personal '
friends and — unfortunately enough — his political followers in the
British Cabinet were publically saying in Parliament and at the
Peace Conference on the same subject.
The British people and their governing class consequently have
never really understood the American attitude towards naval and
maritime matters.
Thus, despite Sir Austen Chamberlain's doubts about our
capabilities to assist in applying League of Nations sanctions, we
have the British clinging, for their own purposes, to their weapon
of economic pressure exercised at sea which served them in such
good stead in the Napoleonic and Colonial wars, and which all but
a few believe was their great stand-by in the last war — oblivious of
the fact that the economic pressure on Germany and her Allies was
only made possible by unusual circumstances and through the large
number of powerful nations engaged as belligerents and the weakness
of the few neutrals.
After a Command of the Seas for three centuries, that has brought
them not only security but supremacy, the British people can
scarcely be expected without education in the new factors to accept,
after less than a decade, the theoretical safeguards of the Covenant
of the League of Nations as a substitute for that sea power ; while
the Americans equally cannot be expected to give up without con-
cession that Freedom of the Seas which is now within their grasp
at a cost that is of little consideration in comparison to the cause
at stake.
It is childish for the British Government to suppose for an instant
that America will not in the end build to secure cruiser-command
because two light cruisers were dropped out of the British pro-
gramme last year and one cruiser this year when fifteen cruisers
of the new type have been already built, or laid down.
Leaving out the ships that will become obsolete and be scrapped
by 1934, and supposing that the new and revised American pro-
gramme is put in hand by then, and that the British programme
continues at the same rate as during the previous seven or eight
198
FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
years, the British and American fleets will then be about equal in
strength.1 If relations between the two countries were as they were
in the days of comradeship and confidence of 1917-18, or even if
they were still as they were before the War when the American
fleet did not enter into the war plans and calculations of the British
Cabinet and naval staff, there would be no cause for alarm and
agitation.
UNCLE SAM — THE BOGEY-MAN
Unfortunately British public opinion has been schooled into
looking upon one or other neighbouring nation as the bogey-man.
And when this propaganda has gone on for some time and the
batteries of war are sufficiently charged with electricity, some
trivial incident like the throwing of a cargo of tea into Boston
Harbour or the shooting of an Austrian Prince in a Balkan town,
short-circuits the diplomatic wires and electrocutes some thousands
or millions of mankind. America is now replacing Russia as the
Britishers' bogey-man. One man may steal our horse with
1 Comparative post-Washington Programmes of Cruiser Construction.
The following table shows the totals of cruisers built, building, and projected
for the two countries during the coming seven years, so far as can be ascertained
from the present programmes and plans on either side :
United States.
Great Britain.
Year.
Built.
Building.
Projected.
Built.
Building.
Projected.
1928
0
8
5
5
9
1
1929
2
11
5
11
4
2
1930
5
13
5
14
3
3
1931
8
15
—
15
5
—
1932
13
10
—
17
3
—
1933
18
5
—
2C
—
—
1934
23
—
—
20
—
—
From the above, it will be seen how the position may be altered by whatever is
done in the year 1 931 in Great Britain. If the three ships recently postponed were
put in hand then, and no addition had meanwhile been made to the American pro-
gramme, each Power would have 23 post- Washington vessels ready for service.
Numerically, this would be parity, but actually the United States would have a
superiority, as about six of the British cruisers would be of the smaller 8,400-ton
type, although armed with 8-inch guns.
In classes built or designed during the War, Great Britain has a surplus in
numbers which is rapidly diminishing owing to obsolescence, and will all but have
disappeared by the time the programme summarized above has materialized.
AFTER THE WAR 199
impunity ; but if the bogey-man looks over the hedge we at once
shout " stop thief."
Let us take one example. For some years the British Press
has contained interesting and detailed accounts of the gradual
mechanisation of the British Army. There is nothing in this
mechanisation except the growing dawn-light in the military mind
that for modern warfare petrol and steel are more effective than
horse-flesh. Spur-jingling, sabre-rattling generals have long ridden
in motor-cars ; and they are at last learning that infantry, guns,
and even cavalry can be moved by motor quicker than by marching
or by mules. Some three years after an entire Division of the
British Army had been mechanised the small United States Army
proposed to follow suit. And look at the effect produced on an
important section of the British Press, already made jumpy by the
American shipbuilding programme. The most powerful group of
newspapers in England is that owned by the Brothers Berry, and
its power is explained by its success in expressing a popular and
non-partisan point of view. Yet as soon as this unimportant
piece of news had crossed the Atlantic the leading Sunday
newspaper of the Berry group came out with the following glaring
headlines :
MECHANICAL SOLDIER8 TRAINED TO KILL:
ROBOT ARMY FOR U.8.A.
FIRE POWER8 MULTIPLIED BY THREE HUNDRED PER CENT.
8H0CK TO EUROPE:
DRAMATIC BRITISH REPLY
This was illustrated by an excellent photograph of British Tommies,
complete with steel helmets, practising with Maxim guns. Then
came the following extracts from this " big story " of the week :
" Sweeping changes are to be made in the United States Army which is
to be mechanised at once. This decision, following her big warship
programme, is likely to cause a diplomatic sensation.
There followed some details, which no soldier would find in any
way extraordinary or significant, and then this :
" British Reply. Our own military authorities are alive to these
changes. Both infantry and cavalry of the British Army are to strengthen
their machine-gun sections this year."
200 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
Can you beat it ? as our American friends say — and we hope they
won't try.
Anyone with any military knowledge at all knows perfectly well
that the present American Army, like the present British Army, is
a professional army, purely and simply for use as an internal or
imperial police at home or abroad. No organization for an American
Expeditionary Force is in existence ; and even the small British
Expeditionary Force, organized with such a dubious secrecy and
such doubtful strategy and for the purpose of fighting on the left
wing of the French armies in the last war, has been broken up. The
possibility of the present British or American armies fighting each
other, or indeed affecting the strategical position as between England
and America, does not exist. If the two countries contemplate a
conflict they must organize a mass mobilization of the resources
of the Empire and of the Union and strategic schemes for war in
two hemispheres. Of course, they have not done so and will not
do so. Yet to such a dangerous pass have the two peoples been
brought that the decision of the United States Army authorities
to supply extra machine-guns to their meagre battalions and
squadrons is referred to as a diplomatic sensation !
Nor is the Press to blame. The Press cultivates the mood of the
moment rather than creates it. It is the subtle and sinister influence
of naval, military, and air force reviews, pageants, displays and
tattoos, all deliberately aimed at showing an imaginary romantic
surface of war and at hiding its miseries and bestialities that gives
most cause for complaint.
The present British Government is directly associated in making
thirty-two " feature " films all designed, more or less, to glorify
war and armaments. Loans of warships, soldiers, artillery, tanks,
aeroplanes, have been made by the military departments, at the
very time when they are crying out that they have not enough
money to carry out the necessary trainings, drills, and practices.
BRITISH ATTITUDE — A COUNSEL
The Press and public opinion of a country look on their neighbours
as friends or foes just as their rulers and ruling class may ordain.
They can be made to change front with remarkable rapidity. In the
AFTER THE WAR 201
lifetime of most of us we can remember many such reorientations.
Early in the century France and Russia were the enemy. The
British built to the Two-Power standard ; and mobilized the fleet
against France over the Fashoda incident and against Russia over
the Dogger Bank accident. The first British destroyers were built
as an answer to the French torpedo-boat flotillas and the super-
cruisers of the day were built to counter the Russian Ruriks. Then
came the change of front that allied us with France and Russia
against the German naval challenge.
The Dreadnought stole a march in construction on the Germans
and the Admiralty pigeon-holed its plans for fighting France and
Russia and prepared the secret plans for the Great War. The Press
preached war with Germany, the professionals prepared for it, and
the politicians prevaricated about it. We mobilized partially over
the " Panther-spring " at Agadir and plunged into war over the
Serajevo assassination. Germany smashed with the help of America,
the British made Russia again the bogey-man, and the Bolshevik
is still the First Murderer, with America a villain " of milder mood "
but none the less M determined to be a villain " and to challenge our
Command of the Sea.1 We are already, in fact, whatever we say,
building with an eye on the American fleet, and we may soon be
mobilizing against it over some trumpery incident or twopenny
interest.
One object of this book is to suggest to the minds of any members
of the British ruling class that may read it, that the reorientation
of British policy in 1922 was right and that the reaction to the
policy of 1912 is wrong. That the old policy of maintaining a naval
balance of power by throwing the British Navy from one scale to
another may have been right when France, Russia, Germany, or
Japan were concerned. But that it is wrong where America is
concerned. And finally, that it is high time for the fire control in
the top to shift the batteries of the Press on to another target — or
even to cease fire altogether.
We have to face the facts. The actual naval rivalry between the
two English-speaking peoples has already embittered their relation-
1 Secretary Hughes has stated that more money is being spent on the naval
air arm alone than on the whole American Navy in any year prior to the War with
Spain.
202 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
ship and weakened their individual and united influence for peace
in the world. Yet, if only the substance of sea security by agree-
ment could be boldly grasped instead of this blind groping for the
shadow of sea supremacy, these two mighty fleets with their growing
air arms backed by scientific, economic, and financial supremacy,
would ensure the Freedom of the Seas and security for the coasts
and commerce of the world without let or hindrance for all time.
Whereas nowadays a claim to Command of the Seas by any one
nation is a shadow that flees ever before each competitor in the
armaments race as he hurries towards the darkening horizon of
war.
CHAPTER IV
COMMAND OF THE SEAS AND THE PEACE
WE are now ready to face the facts of the present, having
reviewed, as far as might be, the facts of the past. Thus
we have shown (Chapter I) that Freedom of the Seas
and Command of the Seas in war cannot be referred for
regulation to any system or sanction of " International Law," and
that the rules as to the rights and responsibilities of neutrals and
belligerents are, in fact, makeshift compromises conforming to every
shift in the balance of sea power. We have seen (Chapter II) how
the war swept all these legal fictions away, and set up a new naval
warfare in three dimensions that requires a radical revision of rules
made for naval warfare in two. We have suggested (Chapter III)
that as, first the general peace and then special Conferences failed
to satisfy American requirements for such a revision in the interest
of Freedom of the Seas the United States are challenging our Com-
mand of the Sea and our claim as an imperial sea Power to exercise
an international sea police.
When we come to the present day we find ourselves, therefore,
faced with this alternative : that either the United Kingdom must
engage with the United States in an armaments competition for
Command of the Seas or the two of us must combine in that command
for guaranteeing the Freedom of the Seas.
In the first case — that of a competition for Command of the
Seas — either we must let ourselves be peaceably outbuilt and outbid
by the wealthier Americans as we outbuilt and outbid the Dutch,
or we shall only let ourselves be ousted after a fight.
ANOTHER ANGLO-AMERICAN WAR APPROACHING?
It may shock some that we should begin this chapter by
coldly — it may seem cynically — weighing the chances of another
203
204 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
Anglo-American war for sea power. But we must face the facts of
the past and the facts of the present. The first fact is that our only
war with the United States, as an independent State, was on this
issue in a far less vital form. The second is that in the last war the
United States only fought for their traditional policy of Freedom of
the Seas on our side and not against us, because German commerce
destruction was more disagreeable to them and more derogatory to
it than the commerce diversion of the British. The third fact is
that this temporary alliance against German sea-piracy ended with
the Armistice, and that we are now far advanced in a competition
for sea power between the United Kingdom and the United States.
And a fourth fact is that we are to-day no further off from war
with America than we were from war with Germany when the
Haldane negotiations for the limitation of Anglo-German naval
armaments broke down just as Anglo-American disarmament has
done.
Indeed, the present situation is even more serious. Germany,
our neighbour across the North Sea, our natural ally and associate,
and our kin in race with a common culture, was challenging
our supremacy in sea power and our superiority as carriers,
colonisers, and capitalists. But Germany was not even aspiring to
anything more than equality in economic competition and was
accepting inferiority in naval strength. Whereas America will,
in ten years, have equality in naval strength and already has
superiority as a capitalist. America is our neighbour across the
Atlantic, our natural ally and associate, and our racial first cousin,
and shares with us not only a culture but also a literature and a
language. On both sides of the Atlantic hands would be held up
in horror at the idea of war. But then so they would have been
twenty years ago on both sides of the North Sea at the idea of an
Anglo-German war. And when a British statesman protests that
war between England and America is " unthinkable," while making
no exertions to clear up misunderstandings between the two peoples,
methinks this gentleman doth protest too much. For the late
Prince Lichnowsky has described (Auf dem Wege zutn Abgrund) his
last interview with the then Prime Minister of England, in which
Mr. Asquith spoke of a war with Germany as " quite unthinkable."
War was then on the point of breaking out.
AND THE PEACE 205
ANGLO-AMERICAN POLITICAL ANTAGONISM
What prospect is there that, when it comes to be generally realized
that we are being ousted from that Command of the Seas which we
have always been taught was a matter of life and death to us, we
shall let it go without a struggle ?
Shall we rather not look on Uncle Sam as —
" A cutpurse of the Empire and the rule,
That from the shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket."
It is useless for the American Government to protest that in its
naval programme now before Congress there is no intention of
competing with us. The United States Government have reduced
their naval programme in response to our Government's suspension
of the British cruisers, but the Press on both sides has a sound sense
of the situation. Says their World :
" This programme challenges in an unmistakable fashion the ancient
prerogative of British sea-power. . . . To-day, both nations are drifting
aimlessly in dangerous waters. Both are without political leaders whose
imagination is competent to regulate this difficulty before it becomes
unmanageable."
And if the American is bruising our heel of Achilles we are tread-
ing on his tenderest toe. His claim to supremacy over the two
Americas has no better justification to-day than our claim to rule
the two Atlantics. A century ago, when European Empires were all
a-blowing and a-growing in the Americas, the Monroe doctrine had
a basis and was a bargain. " We keep out of Europe, you keep out
of America." " Trespassers will be prosecuted." But to-day
American capital and commerce are even more in control of Europe
than of South America. And the imperialistic implications of the
Monroe doctrine are as vast and vague as those of our Sea Power.
At the moment, the United States is penetrating or policing Nicara-
gua just as we are China. And that not against a European Empire
but against a local popular movement backed by a rival Mexico ;
just as our intervention is against the same sort of movement backed
by a rival — Russia. The only European Empire that still has a
2o6 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
footing in the Americas is ours, and we are next door neighbours
in Canada and the West Indies. The Americans have, in turn,
ejected all other European States — the French, the Russians, and
quite lately the Spanish, in this last case by war. They have
skirmished with the Canadians more than once and it was only the
combination of British sea supremacy and Anglo-Saxon solidarity
that has kept the two peoples at peace for a century. If these two
links go, Canada and the West Indies will go too, in so far as our
imperial sovereignty is concerned, either by war or by some trans-
action. For the history of Canada shows a recent rapid development
towards independence, and the history of the West Indies shows a
no less rapid divergence of these communities into the American
economic system.
It is useless for us to claim that Sea Power is vital to us and trans-
atlantic supremacy not so to the Americans — that our maritime
dominance is not imperialistic and their Monroe doctrine is. The
American rulers are Anglo-Saxons like ourselves with the same
capacity for sentimental self-humbug and for cynical self-help.
ANGLO-AMERICAN BUSINESS RIVALRY
Moreover, besides these vital issues and national ideals, there
are to-day as many rivalries between British and American
" interests " as there were between British and German before the
war. Take only one example — that burning question of oil. The
oil supply of the world, outside the Soviet sources, is now organized
in two combines, one British, the other American. Their competition
has now come to a crisis in their dispute for the Soviet surplus, and
the recent success of the Americans has secured them supremacy
in the Asiatic markets, including India. The influence of these
combines over governmental policy on bath sides of the Atlantic
is as obvious as it is obscure. And if this influence contributed,
as seems probable, to the recent rupture of British official relations
with the Soviet Union it may well under the conditions now
developing contribute to a rupture of relations with the United
States.
If the Americans still have the advantage over the British in
oil, the boot is on the other leg in regard to rubber — also a key
AND THE PEACE 207
commodity, essential both to the American producer and consumer.
And the British have long had another hold over American industries
in respect of tin. For the American canning industries are dependent
on tin from the British Empire. And all these various commodities,
which should be so many bonds of common interest between the
two peoples, and control of which would give them in combination
a command of the world for peace, will become more and more
causes of ill-feeling so long as they are in rivalry with one another.
For example, the British restriction on the output of rubber, and
the consequent maintenance of rubber prices, has caused as much
business resentment in America as American competition for
Asiatic oil has caused in England. To which might be added, were
there space, many other Anglo-American business rivalries that
are making to-day the same sort of bad feeling that preceded and
prepared our war with Germany. One more example only will be
given. Our mercantile marine has had hitherto a monopoly of the
carrying trade between India and America. This monopoly the
United States Shipping Board are now challenging by running their
subsidized vessels on this route at unremunerative rates. American
State trading is thus attacking the shipping interests that hold our
Empire together. Which British business thinks unfair. And
though competition is no doubt desirable against these oil and
shipping combines, yet it is no wonder that American business
competitors are already more a bugbear to our ruling class than
ever Germans were.
Nor is this surprising when we reflect that, in charging us a war
debt annuity averaging about thirty-five millions, our American
allies are not only making us pay for having driven the German
cruisers and carriers off the sea on their behalf, but also for driving
our own off the sea at their behest. This effect of the debt settlement
is as yet clearly realized only by a few, and those few are mostly
of the political party responsible for that settlement. But a silent
resentment is spreading through the British ruling class, all the more
dangerous that it is as yet confined to the City, the Clubs, the petits
comites, the Civil Service, the expert Committees — in short, to the
extra-constitutional regions in which our British foreign policy is
framed before Parliament and public opinion are seized of it. And
it is in this region of " authority " that all our wars have begun.
2o8 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
PACIFIST PROTEST AND WAR PROPAGANDA
No doubt when the danger became imminent the real relationship
between the two people would be expressed by the British workers
even to the point of a passive resistance that would cost the rank
and file their employment and their leaders imprisonment under
the new Trades Union Penal Act. For they would go farther and
faster to stop a war with America than they went in 1919 to stop
a war with Russia. Such a war would also possibly be resisted by
the American intellectuals of the Eastern States under peril of their
persons and property from hundred per cent compatriots. But
what would such protests avail against a Press propaganda on either
side driving the ordinary public into war passion and panic ? For
both sides would have much more material for an Anglo-American
war-" hetze " than there was for the working up of the Anglo-
German war fever. Take the following " Points for Speakers "
representing the two points of view as an idea of how such propa-
ganda might run.
Possible British War-Propaganda.
1. The Peace Trap.
11 The Yanks plotting to rob us of that Command of the Seas that is
the Bond of our Empire, the Bulwark of our liberties, and the basis of
our economic existence, tried to take advantage of our straits in our
War for Civilization to drive us into the Boche peace trap of a Freedom
of the Seas. Foiled in this they proceeded to secure Sea Supremacy for
themselves. They restored the German mercantile marine by financial
assistance so as to restore the balance of power ; and they evaded entry
into the League established by their own President so as to keep a free
hand. Under pretext of naval disarmament on a basis of parity they
demanded large cruisers — useless except for destroying our commerce —
while denying us the small cruisers indispensable for its defence. They
thereby forced on us a competition in naval armaments, and proceeded
with their own ambitious programme even after we had suspended our
modest three cruisers. They thereby prevented an economy of over
fifty millions to our Budget and produced a conflict between the two
peoples.
" Meantime as a mask of their policy and a manoeuvre for position
they advertized a pacifist propaganda for the ' Outlawry of War ' and for
BATTLESHIP ALABAMA STRUCK BY 300-lb. AEROPLANE BOMB
(Official photograph, U.S. Army Air Corps.)
AND THE PEACE 209
judicial settlements under arbitration treaties. But whenever taken at
their word, either their Senate threw out the treaty, as in 1897 and 1912,
or some imperialist formula of ' national honour ' as in 1908 or of ' Monroe
Doctrine ' as in 1927 was inserted, which left them full power to fight on
an imperialist issue. Indeed, in this latter case at the very moment when
they were proposing treaties to ' outlaw war ' they were invading
Nicaragua at the cost of several thousand lives in order to impose their
imperialism on the international sea-route across the isthmus and encircle
the Workers' Republic of Mexico. Freedom of the Lesser Nations and
Freedom of the Seas are both bunkum, coming from the most powerful
people in the world that has in recent times attacked all — and that has
annexed many of its weaker neighbours and that has asserted such
maritime claims as that the North Pacific Ocean was an American ' Mare
Clausum.' Moreover, the liberties and the Law of Nations are menaced by
a State that illegally excludes its own coloured citizens from the suffrage
— where wealth can make private war on its own workers — and where
the Courts have scandalized the civilized world by their suppression of
freedom of speech and of thought. Even in such a judicial arbitration
as that of the Behring Sea, employing the highest legal luminaries, the
Americans relied on a forged document. Even for the imprisonment of
a prominent Labour leader they have resorted to a police frame-up.
As against the supremacy of such a State the British Navy is the only
security for Peace and Progress.
2. The Debt Trick.
" The Yanks kept out of the war until they had made all the money
they could out of both sides. Then when the hard fighting was over and
all belligerents bled white and bankrupt they came in to dictate the
peace. Even then they refused all responsibilities under the Peace
settlement, such as participation in the League or acceptance of a mandate
for Western Asia Minor that would have avoided the Greco-Turkish War,
while they claimed all the rights under that settlement by their special
peace with Germany. They then exacted as much of the war debts as
they could extract from each State under pressure of their dominant
financial position ; although this debt had been contracted for a common
cause with them and at a cost of life and livelihood that they themselves
had avoided. And this, although they had repudiated the debts of their
own Southern States and had insisted on excluding them from arbitration.
The money thus wrung from Europe went to establishing an American
financial control over the national economics of European peoples that
has entailed a command of their policy. In our case this debt annuity
pays for building the foreign navy that is to deprive us of the command
of the seas essential to our existence.
210 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
" Against a financial and naval tyranny like this it is the duty of
every patriot to fight to the death."
Now let us outline a possible American war propaganda against
the British.
i. The Peace Trap.
" The Britishers plotting to rob us of the Freedom of the Seas to
which we owe the foundation of our independence — for which we have
fought throughout our history — and which we can now at last enforce,
involved us in war with Germany by driving Germany into illegalities
and inhumanities through pressure of their Sea Power. Having accepted
our assistance and armistice on terms, they broke faith in the Peace
settlement both with us and with the Germans. President Wilson's
demand for Freedom of the Seas was denied, and his Peace League was
deformed into an instrument of imperialism. Having betrayed their
own democracy, that believed itself to be fighting for new liberties of the
lesser nations and a new Law of Nations, by the cynical imperialisms of
the Secret Treaties, British diplomacy tried to bribe the Americans into
sharing in the plunder. The President refused, and restored in the Peace
settlements some respect for self-determination. But the German
colonies were appropriated and lesser nations partitioned by the British
under the cloak of ' mandates,' while the Supreme Council was perpetuated
under cover of the League Council.
" America rejected this ' peace ' and retired from the League. But
under cover of Arbitration approaches and other side doors, the Britishers
tried to get us to walk into their Geneva parlour. Both the Anglo-
American arbitration treaties of 1897 and of 191 2 were immediately
followed by a British war of imperialism, and it was fortunate that these
were rejected by the Senate. Their last approach to Anglo-American
arbitration was actually simultaneous with their invasion of China for
the maintenance of British imperialism there against the Chinese national
renascence.
" America, having decided to secure to the world Freedom of the Seas
by building a fleet equal to that of the British, offered the latter a mutual
disarmament on the basis of parity. These disarmament conferences
were used by the British experts to win tricks at our expense, just as their
diplomats did in the Peace Conference. After accepting the principle of
parity they evaded it in practice and, then, when challenged, repudiated
the principle as well and took refuge in sophistries. The liberties of
lesser peoples and the Law of Nations are menaced by a State whose
foreign policy is still in terms of secret diplomacy, of Balance of Power,
of Naval Empire, and of colonial exploitation. There is not one
important movement for self-determination since the War that the British
AND THE PEACE 211
have not attacked in arms — Irish, Russian, Turkish, Afghan, Chinese,
Arab, Egyptian. The world is not safe for democracy under the supremacy
of such a government, or of one that can deceive its own electorate with
a forged diplomatic document and that tried to convert the General
Strike into a civil war. As against John Bull, gunman and gold brick
man, the American Navy is the only security for Liberty and Law.
2. The Indemnity Trick.
" The Britishers, under cover of a War for Civilization, crushed their
business rival. Having then obstructed the American reconstruction
of Europe and regulation of the Seas, they hoped to oust America from
Europe while they reduced the Germans to indefinite economic slavery
by their immoral indemnity. But America retrieved Germany and
Europe from the ruin and revolution caused by the British blockade,
and they succeeded in imposing some measure of peace on the extravagant
imperialisms of the British and the no less extravagant nationalisms of
their Continental prot£g6s by calling in the war debts of the victors and
by cutting down the war indemnity of the vanquished in the Dawes
scheme.
" The Britishers and their allies have tried hard to get America to write
off the war-debts as against the war indemnities so as to free their
finances for more imperialist wars. But the money power and sea
power of America are the only real securities for peace and progress in
Europe.
" Against British imperialism in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and above
all on the seas, it is the duty of every good American to fight, as his
forefathers fought against it in America."
That is the sort of thing that might be said on both sides, and
all these things have already been said and that, too, by responsible
people or papers. Not that the " Mad Mullah " proclaiming his jehad
or Peter the Hermit preaching his crusade cares much about argu-
ments. But there is enough truth in either indictment to make
difficult the task of peace-makers and passive resisters. Nor would
the advent of a British Labour Government avail of itself to conjure
the danger. A Conservative Government may have less resources
for a popular appeal, but it has far more power over the organs of
public opinion. Whatsoever party is in power at Westminster the
same difficulty will have to be faced — and the difficulty can probably
be dealt with by Conservatives even better than by Progressives.
It is, put shortly, that unless we mean to resign Command of the Sea
212 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
without an effort, or unless we mean to face a fight which would
probably end in our losing that and also our carrying trade and
colonies, we must combine with the Americans in a common naval
policy.
ANGLO-AMERICAN ASSOCIATION THE ONLY SECURITY
The preceding pages have shown that this is not difficult so
far as principle is concerned. For, so far from there being any
real difference in principle between Command of the Seas and Free-
dom of the Seas, the former is the only material " sanction " for the
latter, and the latter the only moral sanction for the former. The
line between the two, as has been said, shifts with the political
situation. Under a balance of Sea Power in a period of peace it
shifts in favour of Freedom of the Seas and international Law.
Under a supremacy of Sea Power and in a phase of general war it
shifts in favour of Command of the Seas. But the only security
and sanction for an international Law of the Seas is still one or
more national navies.
There is not yet, and there may never be, a supremacy of Sea
Power so complete that it can administer a Sovereignty of the Seas
as did the Roman Empire. The moral authority of a League of
Nations, which will be something between that of the mediaeval
Papacy and that of an international Prize Court, will not offer
sufficient security to a people like ourselves, dependent on the sea
for food, fuel, and every form of activity. Those who visualize a
League disposing of a naval force are Leaguist visionaries who
do a disservice to the cause of peace and who expose their country
to disaster in war. Those, on the other hand, who would " scrap the
navy " and accept in return " scraps of paper " such as all-in
judicial arbitration treaties, an international Prize Court, and a
Declaration of London, are little better than legalist voluptuaries.
All these institutions have, no doubt, an importance for establishing
and elaborating a judicature and jurisprudence of the Seas. But
the only sanction is and must remain Sea Power.
The Americans from their remoter perspective see this more
clearly than do Europeans. We British, especially, are blinded by
our belief in the League and inclined to blink its real character.
We are reluctant to recognize that the very term " League of
AND THE PEACE 213
Nations " is a misnomer. For, as at present constituted, it is a
League of Governments, and is wholly guided in its policy by the
greatest common factor in the policies of the Governments com-
posing it, particularly of those countries permanently constituting
the Council. It does not yet, and in our time may not, represent the
international public opinion of the peoples of the world. It repre-
sents the mean of the national policies of the parties each people
puts into power. A real League of Nations would offer some real
security and be a safe repository for sanctions. The present one
does not and is not. For a conjuncture on the Council of delegates
representing reactionary or revolutionary Governments might make
the League a militarist, rather than a mediatory, influence. Neither
against conflicts arising on the old Balance-of-Power political
" fronts " or on the new Bourgeois-Bolshevist social " fronts " is
the League, as yet, a guarantee for the preservation of peace and for
the Freedom of the Seas.
The only security for peace that we British could accept, other
than that of our own command of the seas, is that of an Anglo-
American Agreement to maintain on the High Seas navies of equal
strength which in combination could cope with any other possible
combination — in short, an " Armed Neutrality." And that secured
we could then accept agreements with other States for the Neutral-
ization of the Narrow Seas that would enable them to reduce their
armaments — in short, " Rush-Bagot " agreements.
The principle of the Rush-Bagot arrangement as proclaimed by
John Quincey Adams to Congress (56th 1st Sess.) and approved by
the Senate is that disarmament is the only practical preventive of
war. What Mr. Adams wrote to Lord Castlereagh a century ago
as to Anglo-American armed forces on the Great Lakes is equally
true to-day of their antagonism on the High Seas.
" It is evident that if each party augments its forces with a view to
obtaining an ascendancy over the other, vast expense will be incurred and
the danger of a collision correspondingly augmented."
There are plenty of historic precedents for such a policy in the
Naval Leagues and other Armed Neutralities of the past. But
practical considerations weigh more with us on both sides of the
Atlantic than arguments of principle or precedent. Indeed, it may
214 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
better illustrate the idea to compare the present international situa-
tion with the national situation when the British put the office of
Lord High Admiral into commission. Just as this was found to be
too onerous a position and too objectionable a power to be held by
one personage in the British commonwealth, so now it has become
too onerous and objectionable a responsibility to be left with one
Power in the fast growing Commonwealth of Nations.
ANGLO-AMERICAN ASSOCIATION ADVISABLE FOR BOTH PARTIES
This then is the only possible policy for us British as an alternative
to further drifting into war or being further driven off the seas. It
is the only possible policy for Americans as an alternative to enor-
mous expenditure on armaments and a repetition of the war of 1 812
with the roles reversed. It is not a policy that should appeal to
pacifists alone. It is one that offers 100 per cent patriots on both
sides an escape from experiences very trying to the naval prestige
and national pride of their country. For trying as it would be for
British sailors and citizens to sink tamely into being a subordinate
Sea Power, it might be even more trying for Americans if they had
to fight us for supremacy. The experience and expertize of British
seamen and shipbuilders will make up for a considerable inferiority
in number and strength of ships. The British as the vastly superior
naval power in 1812 and 19 14 had some eye-opening experiences in
naval actions. The frigate duels of 1812 showed how much success
an inferior navy can have without being able to fight a general
action at all. Jutland showed that an inferior fleet can inflict
heavier loss than it incurs in a general action. Moreover, the com-
plete revolutionizing of naval warfare by submarine and mine and
aeroplane makes the sum-total of Sea Power no longer a simple
addition in money-power, armament-power and man-power, but a
complicated equation of unknown quantities in which imponderables
play a prominent part. The one thing that seems certain is that
the next war will not necessarily be won either by big battalions or
by big battleships or even by big banks. And in most other respects
the United Kingdom could compete with the United States.
Of course, too much must not be made of this assumption that the
British are superior in naval man-power. Lord Lee, who as First
AND THE PEACE 215
Lord of the Admiralty attended the Washington Conference and
welcomed its conclusions, did not improve the prospects of the
Geneva Conference when at its most critical stage he wrote a letter
to the Times, from which this is an extract : —
" Apart from this, there are practical reasons why a great programme
of shipbuilding is not likely to find expression in America. It is one thing
to have the money, but quite another to find the men. Scarcity of
personnel has always been an embarrassment to the American Navy
Department, and to man even the existing fleet is a constant tax upon
its ingenuity."
Counting chickens before they are hatched is a mistake, but
counting that they can't be hatched is worse. The men can be
found all right from the 110,000,000 inhabitants of the United
States, if the British furnish the motives for their mobilization. We
made the same mistake of thinking that the Germans would never
make sailors. The Germans made the mistake of supposing that,
first England, and then America could never find soldiers enough
for fighting on the modern scale.
AMERICANS CAN'T DO WITHOUT BRITISH
On the other hand, Freedom of the Seas in any form — revision of
international law, naval disarmament, neutralization of Narrow
Seas, etc. — cannot be achieved by America alone, no matter how
many billions Americans may expend on armaments or how many
millions may enlist in their army and navy. That Americans can
achieve " mathematical superiority " over the British or any other
navy is admitted. But Sea Power is not merely a matter of gun
calibres and tonnage capacities. It is not even a matter only of
courage and skill. London is still the financial centre of the world,
and the capital, the credit and the commerce of the British are
regaining much of the ground lost during the last war. The British
army, navy and air force will always be at least the second in the
world. The British mercantile marine will probably always be the
first. The strategical advantages of the Empire are unrivalled, and
its naval bases not only give it control of the main trade routes of
the world, but would enable it, even as a secondary naval power, to
set up a cut-and-run blockade of the American coast. The British
216 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
Navy could always probably defy American attack in its own
waters and deny the use of the sea to American commerce, not only
in the oceans but on the American coasts themselves. For the last
war has shown that the superiority of the cut-and-dried blockade
of the superior navy over the cut-and-run blockade of the secondary
navy has been greatly reduced, if not altogether removed, by the
introduction of submarine and aeroplane operations.
Even if outbuilt by the United States in battleships, cruisers,
submarines and aircraft, the British could, if the worst came to the
worst, deny a great part of the Atlantic, all the Mediterranean, the
Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and great areas of the Western and
Southern Pacific to American merchant shipping or to neutral
merchant shipping engaged in carrying goods for American ex-
porters and merchants. The Cape route would also be denied to
America and, indeed, all the African trade ; and the British could
command in part even the southern and western Atlantic so long
as their bases in the Falkland Islands, Guiana, the West Indies,
Halifax and Bermuda held out.
Nor, in the present state of world opinion, need the British look
in vain for alliances on the Continent of Europe. With a measure
of secret diplomacy and demagogic subtlety, by no means beyond
British plenipotentiaries and politicians, the British Empire could
to-day exploit the prejudice in Europe against " Uncle Sam, the
Shylock." The British might even exploit prejudices among
Central and South American peoples by no means enamoured of —
or intimidated by — their big American neighbour and his Big Stick.
We need only refer to the recent declaration (29th February, 1928)
by the Argentine Delegate at Geneva that the South American
States do not recognize the Monroe doctrine and repudiate its in-
clusion in the Covenant, in order to realize how easy it would be to
drive diplomatic wedges into Pan- Americanism.
Any such intrigue would, as in the case of the " Zimmerman
Letter," be infallibly revealed to and bitterly resented by American
public opinion. But it is just such risks of '* revelations " and of
ruptures, and of the consequent appeals to war passions and war
panics, that must be avoided. These can best be avoided by arrange-
ments for co-operation as to the seas which are the common heritage
of the two peoples.
AND THE PEACE 217
Therefore, however large an Armada the United States prepares
the United Kingdom will retain, until heavily defeated in war, a
strong secondary position, and, as regards the Old World, a supreme
position.
Thus, while " Uncle Sam " can prevent " John Bull " command-
ing the seas he cannot effectively control them himself so as to
guarantee their freedom in peace and war without " John Bull's "
consent. " John Bull," on the other hand, now that he has to
surrender sea supremacy, cannot safeguard his own commerce or
secure his own coasts without " Uncle Sam's " co-operation.
NO TIME TO LOSE
Assuming then that a naval agreement with America must come
sooner or later as the necessary result of the common sense of the
two peoples and of the conditions in which they now find themselves,
what is to be done ?
In the first place, if we are going to secure an agreement on a basis
of equal naval strength, there is no time to be lost. The present
phase in which the Americans offer us parity will not last long. It
is the result of a balance of power in America between, on the one
side, an economist plutocracy and a pacifist public opinion and, on
the other side, navalist ideals and imperialist interests. The latter
are still immature, but are steadily getting stronger. If once they
secure supremacy in Sea Power they will not again surrender it.
Patriotic sentiment, to which Americans are even more susceptible
than ourselves, will then cause a demand for Command of the Seas
for the establishment and enforcement of Freedom of the Seas. The
American Navy will then be praying as does the British to-day that —
" they may be a security for all such as pass on the Seas upon their lawful
occasions,"
but as to the legality of those occasions the Judge will be the Presi-
dent, not King George.
As for us British our present though tardy readiness to accept
equality in naval power with America is a phase not a permanence.
Our public opinion is prepared at the moment to approach the
question under the realization that our supremacy at sea is costing
218 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
more than it is worth ; that it is a heavy enough burden on the
English to have to carry the cost of the sea forces of an Empire,
composed of independent States scattered over all the Seven Seas,
each with its own interests and issues in foreign relations ; and that
it would be too much if to this were added the provision of naval
' ■ sanctions ' ' for the League (vide Sir A. Chamberlain, Chap. Ill) . But
once let an issue arise that really puts in question the security of our
supplies by sea or the sovereignty of our overseas possessions, and
there is no British Government, whether Tory-economist or Little
England-socialist that would not be forced into competitive building
against America. And, until we have a general agreement with
America in the nature of a Sea-security and Disarmament pact,
such an issue might at any time arise.
SHOULD WE WAIT FOR A LABOUR GOVERNMENT
There is a disposition among British Progressives to postpone
action in this matter until the advent to power of a Liberal or Labour
Government, and to assume that such a change in the point of view
of the party in power will almost automatically alter the attitude of
the peoples towards one another. But this is a very great mistake.
For we have seen (in Chapter III) how powerful an influence is
exercised over British government by the Board of Admiralty
backed by the " authority " of the ruling class. This influence
persists, no matter what party is in power ; and progressive Govern-
ments are particularly subject to it owing to professional and even
public apprehension lest their pacifism might be possibly superior
to their patriotism. It is an influence, moreover, that effects com-
plete changes of policy by successive technical proposals and pro-
positions of detail very difficult to traverse or to treat as departures
from an approved policy. We have seen how a mere replacement of
cruisers, when the first Labour Government was in power, was
carried against the wishes of the Cabinet and came to be considered
in America a reversal of policy. Yet it is hard to see how, in the
circumstances, the Labour Government could have acted otherwise
than it did and refused to build new ships, more powerful than any
predecessors of their class, in view of the Admiralty assurances that
they were required in the national interest. Nevertheless, at the
AND THE PEACE 219
time the British Navy was relatively stronger in this class of vessels
than in any other.
In like manner it has been easy for the Admiralty and armament
interests to work up an agitation about building programmes in
Japan, France, Italy and America. It mattered nothing that these
programmes were on paper, and would probably remain only on
paper unless the British provided the incentive to appropriate
moneys for them. Professional authority has learnt how to control
Parliament and public opinion by platform and Press agitations.
A Labour Government, whose Ministers in the service depart-
ments might be men " moving with vague misgiving in worlds half
realized " — which had a small majority in the Commons and a very
small minority in the Lords — which had practically the whole
Press and most of articulate and authoritative public opinion against
it — and which had no definite programme beyond pious and pacific
principles, would be in a very weak position for imposing on pro-
fessional and Parliamentary opposition, on the Press and on public
opinion, a departure from our traditional policy of independent
Command of the Seas. It would almost certainly either fail, through
compromising itself with compromises, or fall in a collision with the
political Admirals and its professional advisers.
No doubt a strong Socialist Government with a carefully prepared
programme, or a Liberal-Labour Coalition with dominant public
personalities, might get such a grip of British opinion, and might so
win American opinion by bold gestures, as to put through, in one
term of office, such proposals as are hereafter outlined. By uniting
the younger school of soldiers and sailors with the Leaguist and
Labourite pacifists for such a radical reduction and reconstruction
of armaments as would combine the greatest possible efficiency and
economy, such a Government might be able to retain public con-
fidence in the security of the country and in the sincerity of the
Cabinet. But such a Government would also have so much else on
hand that it is more than likely that it would not be able to under-
take that vigorous offensive in this region that would be its defence
against an opposition. An opposition that would not fail to profit
by any promising opening for an indictment as to neglect of the
indispensable defences of the State.
There is possibly a better prospect of improvement in this region
220 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
from a moderate Conservative Government. It was Conservative
leaders who made the long step towards naval disarmament and
association with America at Washington. True, the Admiralty, by
detaching Mr. Churchill and some Tory intransigents, reversed this
policy as far as was possible at Geneva. But a Conservative Govern-
ment might see the opportunity offered to acquire merit by a " sea
Locarno " that would bring not merely Germany, but America,
back into association with us. And such a Government would be
able to control public opinion through its Press, its professional
advisers and its patriots of the ruling class. So weak a Prime
Minister or so wayward a Chancellor as those of the present Govern-
ment are not common features even of British post-war politics.
The proposals that follow have therefore been prepared with an
eye to their application rather by a Conservative than by a Pro-
gressive British Government. The difference being, that a strong
Progressive Government must begin by getting as far as it can with
the initial impetus of the popular mandate that has put it into
power, knowing that the farther it goes and the longer it lasts the
more it will lose driving power and direction. Whereas a Conserva-
tive Government will move slowly along a line of least resistance and
gradually gather momentum from its own movement.
WHAT ARE THE PROSPECTS OF AGREEMENT ?
Assuming, then, that future British Governments will be either
Conservative-Progressive or Progressive-Conservative and that
future American Governments will lie within the range between those
of Wilson and Coolidge, what prospect is there of getting an agree-
ment for an Anglo-American Armed Neutrality that would secure
the British a fair insurance in command of the seas and the Ameri-
cans a fair assurance of Freedom of the Seas ? The answer seems
to be that the principal difficulties of such an agreement in the past
are now disappearing. British insistance on naval superiority has
had to yield to hard facts. American objections to such arrange-
ments as " entangling alliances " or " undesirable commitments "
are yielding to force of circumstances. Moreover, such an agreement
with us would be only a preliminary to a general agreement for that
revision of sea law that is a canon of American policy. And the
AND THE PEACE 221
guarantee to be given to that new law would be confined to waters
accessible to American warships and would carry no commitments
to European affairs. Nor is there any infringement of the Senate's
constitutional prerogatives in agreements to reduce armaments or
arrangements for the revision of international law. Any legislation
that might be required would be in line with the Outlawry of War
movement and would be left to Congress. And if an atmosphere of
confidence could be substituted for the too angular Anglo-Saxon
attitudes hitherto affected on either side, neither Republicans
nor Democrats, Conservatives nor Labourites would have much
difficulty with partisan opposition or public opinion,
SENTIMENTAL DIFFICULTIES
But there would none the less be difficulties of sentiment. The
British would have, in the first place, to realize fully that their
naval supremacy is gone and recognize frankly that " parity " with
America gives them all the security required, whether as belligerents
or neutrals. As yet our Admirals represent too large a body of
British opinion when they write (Times, 6th July, 1927) :
" We insist on that number of cruisers. If America insists on building
to parity that is her affair. But it would not be an act of goodwill."
Americans on their side must realize that their new Command of
the Seas will make it even more impossible for them to keep out
of European wars in the future. As it is, they have been forced into
every general European war since their independence, and their best
chance of keeping out of the next is to overcome their secular
suspicion of us and to associate with us in an armed neutrality that
can keep the peace. But at present their mayors represent too
large a body of American opinion when they talk of M making King
George keep his snoot out of Chicago." And, apart from the
mollification of such giants, there are still difficulties of sentiment.
On the British side there is still a strong prejudice against revival
of this second of the President's Fourteen Points, and on the Ameri-
can side a strong prejudice against any approach to the League.
Now this Second Point was the first pillar of the President's Temple
of Peace. Which means that the British will have to envisage now
the eventual renunciation of the right of independent blockade instead
222 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
of, as now, tacitly recognizing that in future it will be impossible
to enforce it without American approval. While the Americans
will have to envisage now, eventually recognizing, that Freedom of
the Seas and Sea Law cannot be guaranteed without an Anglo-
American Convention which will have to be brought into relation
with the Covenant of the League.
AGREEMENT MUST PRECEDE DISARMAMENT
This change of atmosphere and of attitude must precede any real
naval disarmament. Instead of politicians protesting that an
Anglo-American war is unthinkable while their professional advisers
are bound to think of nothing else ; instead of Peace Conferences like
that of The Hague in 1907, which exclude naval disarmament — the
real road to peace — or Naval Disarmament Conferences like that
of 1927 at Geneva, which are exploited by experts for juggling over
cruiser tonnages and gun elevations or for jockeyings with Singa-
pore docks and building programmes as at Washington, there might
be a real disarmament for a real reason as there was of the British
war-fleet after the defeat of Germany.
The basic principle of such a disarmament might then be an Anglo-
American parity, not of tonnage, but of annual expenditure, leaving
each party to expend its quota as it pleased, which would eliminate
the experts. If one party to such an agreement used its quota in
such a way that another party considered itself menaced, there
would be several courses open to the aggrieved party. It could use
its own quota wholly as a reply to the menace, it could notify the
other parties that it must incur extra expenditure unless the con-
struction complained of ceased, or it could give notice to terminate
the agreement in six months — all of which measures have been
taken at different times under the Rush-Bagot agreement without
in any way weakening its principle (See Appendix). It is difficult
to see how, with so liberal an arrangement and with so much liberty
of action, there could be any real risk even for a Power so vitally
interested in its sea communications as is the British Empire. In
fact, under such an arrangement, it would probably be possible to
stop such building of submarines by neighbouring Powers as is now
causing the British serious alarm and against which they have now
no real remedy .
AND THE PEACE 223
The disarmed frontier along the Great Lakes has never been any
cause of alarm to either the American or the Canadian peoples,
simply because they have always been led to look upon it as safe.
The highly armed water frontier between the British and French
peoples has been, and is, a constant cause of alarm, simply because
the larger the armaments the less those people are led to look upon
it as safe. The " Blue-water School " often, for reasons of its own,
behaves as a Blue-funk School. For long after the British had
disarmed the Germans, destroyed their Fleet, and denied them sub-
marines, their Admiralty went on maintaining naval defences and
naval bases on the North Sea coast of no use except for an Anglo-
German naval war.
But the fears of to-day become the jests of to-morrow. For
some years after the signing of the Rush-Bagot agreement stores of
arms were secreted on both sides of the border. They are now
valued as heirlooms or valuable as curios.
The Great Lakes have been converted by ship canals into ocean
inlets and are no longer, as they were a century ago, inland waters.
Yet the agreement has been honourably maintained under these
new conditions. There seems no reason to fear that such an arrange-
ment neutralizing Narrow Seas, like the Caribbean channels or
Alaskan inlets, would not. survive any similar sudden change of
strategic conditions. And as other Powers acceded to the arrange-
ment and similar arrangements were extended to other Narrow
Seas further disarmament would become possible. Until, eventu-
ally, navies were reduced to revenue and police craft as they are
to-day in the Great Lakes. A Joint Naval Board, responsible for
and reporting on the administration of these arrangements, might
be conducive to public confidence. And we would cite as an en-
couraging example of what such Joint Boards can do in preventing
national issues from disturbing international interests the good work
done by various permanent American-Canadian Commissions on
this same water frontier.
NEUTRALIZATION OF NARROW SEAS
If this first step be taken of neutralizing, or at least demilitarizing,
the Narrow Seas in which British and Americans are especially con-
cerned ; and if this step be accompanied by a reciprocal reduction
224 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
of the British and American Navies, then the next step will be an
extension of these arrangements to other Sea Powers. Obviously
a neutralization of the Baltic, Southern North Sea, Channel, Adriatic,
iEgean and Black Sea, would enable several minor navies to disarm
at once altogether — provided an adequate " armed neutrality "
guaranteed the neutralization.
A first step in this direction of disarmament by demilitarization
was taken at the Washington Conference (see Chapter III). It was
the partial demilitarization of a zone in the Pacific which made
possible the partial demilitarization of the Japanese Navy and the
dissolution of the Anglo- Japanese armed alliance.
Compare with this another cause of demilitarization — that of the
Aaland Islands, which was under the auspices of the League and
was unaccompanied by any disarmament. Because the Sea Power
most interested, the Soviet Union, was not included. The history
of this, very shortly, is that Russia violated the Treaty of Paris
(Art. 33) on the outbreak of war and occupied these islands which
command the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland. They were
as advantageous to Russian naval strategy as Belgium to the German
military strategists. Nevertheless, it was decided after the war
(Report of Jurists Commission) that the Convention of Paris being
still in force as International Law, the international and neutralized
status of the islands had survived Russian and Swedish occupation.
By a treaty of 24th July, 1921, these islands, or rather a demarcated
area of the Baltic containing them, was declared a " neutral zone "
and demilitarized.
The best known example of neutralization in modern times, that
of the Black Sea in the Treaty of Paris, was of a different character
and a cause not of disarmament but of armament. For this was a
penal disarmament of a defeated enemy, Russia, like the present
disarmament of Germany in the North Sea and Baltic. This penal
disarmament was naturally and necessarily denounced and discarded
at the first opportunity by Russia. And the first opportunity was
obviously the first rupture — the Franco-Prussian war between the
Sea Powers that were guaranteeing the neutralization. Applying
this lesson to the present proposition for neutralizing the Black Sea
and North Sea-Baltic, we must recognize that if these were to be
imposed as a penalty on Russia and Germany respectively, they
AND THE PEACE 2*5
Would oniy last until the supremacy in sea power that was guaran-
teeing them was ended by a rupture between the Sea Powers. And
this guarantee would in fact hold good so long as the Anglo-American
solidarity held good. But if, as would be the case, it were not
imposed as a penalty but for the mutual protection and profit of
all the associated Powers there would always be a sufficient sea police
— an authoritative Armed Neutrality — for the maintenance of any
such neutralization.
NEUTRALIZATION, GERMANY AND RUSSIA
Such a neutralization, accompanied by naval disarmament, would
be a long step towards restoring the confidence of a penally disarmed
Germany in the present constitution of Europe. And, without such
confidence there can be no peace. It would be a still longer step
towards restoring Russian co-operation in the present constitution
of Europe, and without such co-operation there will sooner or later
be war. For this proposal is in line with the disarmament proposals
made by the Russians themselves at Geneva, which contemplate
with characteristic comprehensiveness a division of the seas into a
number of zones to be policed by specified Sea Powers with 3000-ton
patrol boats, carrying light guns and crews armed with pistols. In
short, a regular Russian-Bagoting of all navies.
Now, therefore, is the time to negotiate treaties in which America
and Britain would offer Freedom of the Seas to Russia, Germany
and the other States concerned by means of a demilitarizing of the
North Sea, the Baltic and the Black Sea. Because Germany Is, for
the time being, disarmed ; while Russia is, for the time being,
diverted from naval enterprise and has a foreign policy and foreign
relationships which have a more modern sanction than sea power.
On the other hand, British sea power is at present a serious menace
to the Soviet system. For though it cannot, as has been proved,
overthrow the new institutions, yet it can penetrate and perturb the
circle of subsidiary States with which Soviet Socialism has sur-
rounded and secured its political innovations and its economic
experiments.
The Baltic States — Finland for example — could be cajoled or
coerced into becoming a subsidized satellite of British sea power in
226 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
the Baltic. The same applies to Turkey, Roumania and even the
Caucasian Sovietist States in the Black Sea. We have evidence of
the use that can be made of sea power in the disintegration of the
Chinese Nationalist movement by a British military intervention
at Shanghai. Whether this intervention will prove to have been an
advantage to the nation concerned and the world in general, any
more than were the interventions of British sea power against
Russian Nationalist Socialism in the Baltic and Black Seas, or against
Turkish Nationalism in the Straits, does not concern us. The
point is that they were all undertaken by the British Navy acting
as a sea police, with the partial approval of America and other Sea
Powers. Without that approval they would have been impossible.
And that approval will not in future be obtainable so easily as when
the British Navy was supreme at sea, and the object of intervention
was a revolutionized Russia or a China discredited by Communism
and disintegrated by civil war.
NEUTRALIZATION AND THE BRITISH
Since the war the British are too suspect of interested aims and
imperialist ambitions to be able to assert their old arbitrary authority
as sea police. If the reader could have seen, as one of the present
writers did, the crisis at Constantinople when the Turkish Nationalist
armies came up against the British garrison, he would have realized
that the international mandate for the preservation of peace was
being exercised in the Bosphorus, not by the British but by the
American Navy. Admiral Bristol was the American successor of that
long line of British Admirals who, in so many crises, had imposed
peace on conflicting nationalist and imperialist navies in the Mediter-
ranean. And admirably did he discharge his responsibilities. His
position and powers can be compared indeed to that of British
Admirals in the previous century when intervening between the
imperial Ottoman Navy and the Greek National Navy in one of their
many disputes for Crete.
Therefore the renunciation of independent British intervention
against Nationalist or Socialist movements that would be involved
in a neutralization of the Narrow Seas — the Baltic and Black Sea —
would be no great sacrifice ; quite apart from any question as to
AND THE PEACE 227
whether such interventions are sound policy. And the formal
acceptance of American association as a sine qua non of any further
sea policing would be a reinforcement of our influence in view of the
unfortunate fact that it is the American, and not the British, Navy
that now enjoys the confidence of the countries concerned.
But will the British agree to a neutralization of the Channel
and Southern North Sea over which until two centuries ago they
claimed sole sovereignty and where they are still to-day supreme ?
In this case it is not merely a question of the British renouncing
the pride and privileges of Sea Power and the pressure of its policy
on overseas peoples. The British have to face the more practical
question as whether they would be safe in entrusting the protection
of their Channel and North Sea coast and the commercial highways
to Newcastle, Hull, London and Southampton, to such an Armed
Neutrality ? This is a point calling for the most careful consideration.
In the first place, as we found in the war, the British fleet of battle-
ships can no longer draw an impenetrable cordon round the British
Isles. Owing to the under-water menace of submarine and floating
mine it cannot even prevent enemy cruisers from coastal raids as
was shown in the last war. While the aeroplane has made the
Channel as a line of defence as obsolete as a mediaeval moat*
" This precious stone set in a silver sea
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house "
—can keep its moat as a picturesque " period *' feature but will find
a police force a more useful protection. Mediaeval Lords of the
Manor felt, no doubt, more comfortable behind a moat for many
generations after cannon and the constabulary had made them
unnecessary nuisances.
The British would therefore lose nothing and would only be
giving a logical expression and extension to the strategy of the last
war if they transferred their naval bases from the Channel and North
Sea to the Atlantic Ports as a transition towards a more complete
disarmament. For in the event of these waters being threatened
with use as a field of hostilities the armed neutrality would in the
last resort simply close them with minefields, excepting channels
under its supervision, as was done by the belligerents in the last war.
2*8 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
But an armed neutrality, based on such an Anglo-American naval
association as won the last war, is essential to the British if they are
to accept an international guarantee instead of a naval guard for
their coast.
NEUTRALIZATION AND THE AMERICAN SENATE
An association of the American Navy in any guarantee for the
neutralization or demilitarization of the Narrow Seas is indispens-
able, if any real naval disarmament is to be obtained thereby on the
part of countries with coasts and commerce to protect. And
although no sea law can have any real sanction without the support
of an American Navy, and though such new sea law as this would be,
is, in effect, that Freedom of the Seas for which the American Navy
has been built, yet the question arises all the same as to whether the
Americans will agree to give such a guarantee.
Let us first consider the American Senate. Because their competi-
tion with the Executive for control over Foreign Affairs has caused
the collapse of many peace moves and will cause the collapse of
many more. The Senate approved the Rush-Bagot demilitarization
and disarmament — they have a large majority that would support
progressive peace policy — and they could find in this proposal no
encroachment of their constitutional perogative. We have, however,
to face the fact that the Senate represent that Conservative element
in American public opinion that favours isolation and fears entangle-
ment. It was the Senate who prevented the United States from
undertaking those responsibilities in Europe pressed on them by
President Wilson. But the responsibility here proposed does not lie
in Europe, but on those seas which are as much the heritage of
Americans as of any other people.
Lord Salisbury once silenced soft-hearted and soft-headed British
altruists who wanted armed intervention for the protection of
Armenia with the objection that " the British Fleet cannot cross
the Taurus." With an equally sound sense of their limitations the
Americans rejected President Wilson's proposal for American
mandates in Asia Minor, to the great loss of the rest of civilization.
But the American Fleet can cross the Atlantic. It did so a century
ago, as we have seen in the first chapter, and imposed Freedom of
the Seas on the pirates of the Narrow Seas of the Mediterranean.
AND THE PEACE 229
It can now impose Freedom of the Seas from " private war " in
those and other seas. And if they can be made to understand this
the Americans will be ready to undertake it.
NEUTRALIZATION AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
What chance is there then of getting from the American people
as a whole such a guarantee of Freedom of the Seas as will secure
the British and Europeans in disarming navally ? A bilateral Anglo-
American offensive — or even defensive, alliance is, of course, out
of the question. Even a general guarantee, like that of Art. X in the
Covenant, is hopeless in view of the constitutional powers of the
Senate, and the probability that a sufficient minority of the Foreign
Affairs Committee will express the popular antipathy to continental
commitments in general and to entangling alliances with the British
in particular.
But there are two sentiments of almost equal strength in the
mental make-up of every individual American or Englishman.
One is the instinct for segregation and for the assertion of rights, and
the other is the instinct for service and for the assumption of responsi-
bilities. In Americans the first has expressed itself in the Monroe
doctrine and isolation. The second has expressed itself in Freedom
of the Seas and co-operation in the cause of peace. Between these
two national instincts — isolation and co-operation — there is a
constant oscillation. Isolation is at present dominant ; but it is, and
always has been, curiously intertwined with co-operation, both in
American personalities and in American policies. For example,
George Washington, to whose Farewell Address this policy of isolation
is generally referred, obviously considered isolation a provisional
policy, not a permanent principle. He not only sanctioned " tem-
porary alliances " for " extraordinary emergencies " but assumed that
"when our institutions are firmly consolidated and working with
complete success, we might safely and beneficially take part in the
consultations of Foreign States for the good of Nations."
The process he anticipated has taken place. In the century 1784
1884 the United States Government took part in only two inter-
national Conferences. In the following three decades, up to the Great
War, it took part in twenty-eight of which it ratified the results.
230 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
This emergence from isolation was mainly effected by President
Roosevelt who made the United States, not only participant but
predominant, in two peace settlements of primary importance ;
that which settled the Far East after the Russo-Japanese War and
that of Algeciras (1906), which prevented a European war about
Morocco. It is now forgotten that it was the American President
who convoked the Conference, drew up the agenda, and, when it
deadlocked, decided the settlement and induced the recalcitrant
Kaiser to accept it. Yet, in this very year (1906) the Senate by
resolution reaffirmed —
" the traditional foreign policy which forbids participation by the
United States in the settlement of political questions which are entirely
European in their scope."
And this is the most authoritative definition to-day of the isolationist
principle, framed as it is by the body which has considered itself
especially responsible for enforcing it.
But even the Senate with its eye on its own constitutional control
of Foreign Affairs, can be carried a certain way into co-operation
by the right man and the right methods at the right moment. The
outbreak of the Great War produced almost a passion for segregation
and isolation in America. But, as realization grew that Europe could
not make peace and might destroy civilization unless America
intervened, and that, in any case America was practically involved
however much it might isolate itself politically, this changed to
the contrary sentiment. And the call for co-operation found its
prophet in Wilson. But not in Wilson only. His opponent, Mr.
Roosevelt, preached in 1915 (America and the World War) " A
world League for a Peace of Righteousness " in which the United
States should take the lead. A " League to enforce Peace " was
proposed (1915) by a Society of leading Republicans like ex-President
Taft, this League to use military sanctions against aggressors. And
with this went a general silencing of the " entangling alliances "
slogan.
President Wilson, in a speech on Memorial Day (30th May, 1916),
said :
" General Washington warned us against entangling alliances. I
shall never myself consent to an entangling alliance. But I would gladly
assent to a disentangling alliance that would disentangle the peoples of
AND THE PEACE 231
the world from these combinations in which they seek their separate
interests and unite them to preserve the peace. There is freedom, not
entanglement."
He later repeated this point in his address to the Senate (22nd
January, 1917), when he said, " there is no entangling alliance in a
Concert of Power." While his bitter opponent, Senator Lodge,
who was later to voice American withdrawal from the League on
isolationist grounds, echoed this (1916) :
" I do not believe that when Washington warned us against entangling
alliances he meant for one moment that we should not join with other
civilized nations to diminish war and encourage peace."
Thereafter the disillusionment s of Versailles brought, as we
have seen, a reaction against co-operation that still endures. And,
in view both of the worsening of relations since the failure of Geneva
and of the way that the negotiations for a new arbitration Treaty
are being handled, we can hope for nothing better at present than to
get America to accept such an association with the British as it
offered in the Washington Agreement in 1923. It will be some time
before we get America to combine with the British in such naval
co-operation as followed their entry into the war. But there seems
to be no reason why we should not now get together to secure a
Peace for the Seas — of Freedom of the Seas — by Command of the
Seas.
One serious difficulty remains. That the peace movements of the
two countries are pursuing different policies from distinct points of
view.
The Americans are getting more and more into the Outlawry of
War movement. The British more and more into the League
movement. And we have now to show that, like the antagonism
between Freedom of the Seas and Command of the Seas, the antagon-
ism between the Peace League and Outlawry of War is an antagonism
only of aspects and attitudes and not necessarily of principle or
even of policy.
AMERICAN " OUTLAWERS " AND BRITISH " LEAGUERS "
Let us analyse " outlawry " therefore, and see first how it can be
brought into line with British peace policy, and then how it does not
232 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
necessarily conflict or compete with the League. The authoritative
formulation of " outlawry " is contained in various resolutions
brought before Congress and included in the Appendix. But here
we shall only deal with the principles underlying them all, and not
with their very considerable differences of detail.
The controversy as to whether war can ever be justifiable is as
old as war itself. In the early days of international war, when
police wars against pirates, religious wars against heretics, and civil
wars against rebels were common and important, the regulators of
war, like Grotius, had the better of repudiators of war, like Erasmus.
Then, as Machiavelli and Hobbes developed their political theories
and national States arose, the assumptions that war was the proper
prerogative and protection of Princes and peoples, became pre-
dominant. " The King can do no wrong '• in its modern form of
" My country, right or wrong " became a sufficient justification.
The " outlawry of war " movement is a refreshing reaction against
this. And, naturally enough, it concentrates its attack on individual
rather than on collective responsibility. For it is inequitable and
inexpedient to penalize a people. Thus almost every great war has
produced an " outlawry of war " reaction for the penalizing of
individual war-makers. The Congress of Vienna branded Napoleon
as —
" an enemy of the peace of the world . . . liable to public vengeance "
and the Treaty of Versailles (Art. 227) " publicly arraigns " the
Kaiser for —
" a supreme offence against international morality and the sanctity of
treaties."
This led logically to the prosecuting of " war criminals," and the
Treaty also provided for the prosecution of enemy persons who
violated the laws and customs of war. But this, which is an after-
effect of war fever, cannot be sustained. Napoleon was imprisoned
and the result was a Napoleonic restoration a generation later.
Moderate opinion approved Holland's refusal to extradite the
Kaiser for trial, as well as Germany's decision to herself try the " war
criminals " at Leipsig with the result that some were sentenced.
And when the Treaty went so far as to indict Germany as a whole
AND THE PEACE 233
for " war guilt," public opinion now begins to see that a mistake was
made.
The " outlawry of war " movement for penalizing war-making is
on firmer footing than these penalties in that it looks forward
and not backward. Senator Borah's resolution (see Appendix)
proposes that —
" Every nation should be encouraged by solemn agreement or treaty
to indict and punish its own international war breeders and war profiteers
under powers similar to those conferred on Congress under Art. i, Sec. 8,
of the Federal Constitution, which clothes Congress with powers to
define and punish offences against the Law of Nations."
Moreover, similar powers are conferred by the new German Constitu-
tion. We have here, in fact, a practicable proposal for reinforcing
respect for international law by domestic penal legislation. States
being already responsible to one another for violations of inter-
national law, it is only necessary to define that law clearly in order
to make them protect themselves by penal legislation. And some
legislation of this sort is already in force, namely the Foreign
Enlistment Acts.
Outlawry of War, therefore, in looking to internal legislation as a
sanction for a revised and extended international law, including
Freedom of the Seas, is not only sound in principle but produces
satisfactory precedents on which to build. And good use can be
made of this proposal of the Outlawry movement in providing a
sanction for Freedom of the Seas and in permitting a more rational
segulation of the rights of neutrals in respect of Contraband.
In another respect the Outlawry of War movement has given a
lead that should be followed up by British pacifists without difficulty.
That is, in its demand for a revision and reinforcement of international
law in general and of sea law in particular Attempts have already
been made in this direction by Conferences and Committees of
jurists working, on the one side, for pan-American organizations,
on the other side, for European organizations such as the League.
All have achieved just nothing at all. Nor will anything be achieved
until British and Americans get together on the job, working on an
agreed principle, namely Freedom of the Seas, and with an associated
sanction, namely their joint Command of the Seas.
234 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
REVISION OF SEA LAW— CONTRABAND
Before Freedom of the Seas can be secured under an Anglo-
American Command of the Seas existing international law must be
brought up to date in two respects which at present regulate Com-
mand of the Sea by any one sea power : namely Contraband and
Blockade.
The whole condition of the law of contraband is chaotic. It is
as confused in principle as in practice. As to the principle the jurists
of no one sea power have as yet agreed as to whether commerce in
contraband is illegal or illicit or the opposite. Judge Story called it
" illicit " (Carrington v. Insurance Co., 1834) — Chief Justice Chase
called it " unlawful " (" Peterhoff," 1866). While Chancellor Keat
considered it lawful (Seton v. Low, 1799). The position would appear
to be that it is to a large extent still legal under national legislation,
but illicit in international law. To quote Lord Loreburn (Capture
at Sea, p. 124) :
" A neutral power may not itself export materials of war " — but
'" need not prevent its subjects or citizens from selling or exporting
materials of war. Yet it is bound to prevent them arming and exportng
a ship intended for war."
Moreover, supply of one belligerent is not an " unneutral service "
provided it is open to the other belligerent to get supplies too;
even though he manifestly can't and materially never could. Could
anything be more absurd and anomalous ?
Nor is the practical regulation of contraband any more satis-
factory. We have seen (Chapter II) how the old distinction of abso-
lute and conditional contraband was maintained in the Declaration of
London with the addition of the " Free List." These classifications
consisted of specific lists of goods based on no principle, but each
subjected to very different treatment. And we saw how all this
artificial and antiquated raffle of regulations was swept away in the
war. We saw how naval warfare passed rapidly from its primitive
procedure — the prevention of commerce in contraband by close
blockade of the enemy's coast to the present-day procedure of pre-
venting all commerce with the enemy even in neutral ships between
neutral ports, by cordoning the high seas with cruisers and mines
AND THE PEACE 235
or by countermining them with submarines. And how it passed
thereafter into a third procedure — the blockade of the future — the
stoppage of enemy commerce at source by restrictive agreements.
Which latest form of blockade was in the last war mainly a matter
of private arrangement with neutral trading organizations of
national scope. If it were to be made generally a matter of agree-
ment between Governments as it had already become before the end
of the war in the case of the " Rationing Agreements," it would render
obsolete the belligerent right of seizure and search with all their
difficulties and dangers. And this new relationship between
belligerent navies and neutral trade must be the basis of any new
regulation of naval and neutral rights under international law.
PROHIBITION OF TRADE IN MUNITIONS
The future revision of international law will have therefore to
follow the lead given by Great Britain in 1907 and abolish the
absurdity of contraband ; and it will have to follow the line taken by
the British in the war and base itself on the complete control by
neutral governments of their commerce with belligerents. Such
control, either partial as in Foreign Enlistment Acts or complete as
in embargoes, has in practice been exercised by neutral Governments
in war. It has only to be recognized in principle in order to become
the basis of a revised international law. For Governments would
then be in a position to give expression by legislation to the public
opinion — the consensus gentium that profiteering by private
traders in the supply of arms to either or both belligerents is not
only a breach of neutrality but a crime against civilization. And
this is the principal proposal of the outlawry of war movement.
The future revision of international law should therefore be based
on an Anglo-American agreement either to prohibit the private
manufacture of munitions of war, or to extend existing legislation so
as to make a State responsible for prohibiting the export of munitions
to a belligerent, as it is now responsible for preventing the export
of warships. The British and American Foreign Enlistment Acts
restrain their citizens from interventions in war to which they are en-
titled in international law. Enlistment in the armies of a belligerent
— equipment of a belligerent fleet outside territorial waters — sale
236 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
of ships for conversion into cruisers, are none of them breaches of
neutrality. But it is a breach of neutrality for a Government to
discriminate as between belligerents in allowing its citizens to supply
munitions ; and it would be a short step to make it a breach of
neutrality to supply them at all.
American legislation has gone a long way in this direction already.
Acts of Congress (14th March, 1912 and 21st January, 1922), have
embargoed the export of arms to neighbouring States " in condition
of domestic violence." There have also been general international
regulations stopping the supply of arms to savage races or disturbed
regions, and what belligerent is not, when at war, " a savage race "
and "in a condition of domestic violence " ? Nor has the League
been backward. The draft Treaty on the Arms Trade was a long
step in the right direction and was moreover acceptable to the
United States.1 So that we have here a line of advance in which both
the British and American peace movements can combine in order to
substitute for the principle of contraband an extension of recent
national legislation and of international law — which is easy of estab-
lishment and of enforcement. For the enforcement of neutrality
would thereby be transferred from an international to a national
sanction and from the prize courts of the belligerent to the police
courts of the neutral — a great gain in itself to the comity of nations
and to the outlawry of war. Contraband would thereby become
for the first time really contra bannum — an outlawed traffic banned
by the laws of the nation and by the Law of Nations.
One advantage of this solution, and that not a small one, would
be that it would prevent the negotiations for the revision of inter-
national law from offering, as they have always hitherto done, oppor-
tunities for intrigues between the national delegations to secure
changes of the law in their own national interests. The result being
either that nothing is done ; or else that something is done that
someone has no intention of accepting, which is much the same.
REVISION OF SEA LAW— BLOCKADE
Contraband thus dealt with there remains blockade. And the
crux of a future revision of sea law will be the regulation of the
1 The Convention for the Supervision of the International Trade in Arms was
signed in 1925 but has not yet been ratified.
AND THE PEACE 337
independent right of economic blockade — as gradually developed
in the last war, and as traditionally demanded by Great Britain.
The principle on which such a regulation should be based as well as the
object which it should have in view would be the fullest and most
forcible application possible of theWilsonian principle, quoted above,
so that the more intensive the blockade imposed, the more inter-
national should be its authority and aim. But there are obvious
difficulties to be dealt with. Blockade is, as we have seen, a most
comprehensive and coercive weapon of sea war — in fact all other
naval weapons are only important in their relation to it. This has
already been recognized in international law by subjecting blockade
to formalities not required for other naval operations. Blockade
was declared as early as the eighteenth century (" Henrik and
Maria," 1799), to be an act of " High Sovereignty," not at the discre-
tion of a mere naval commander but requiring a declaration by the
belligerent government and an official notification to neutral
governments. This is as established a rule of international law as
any. And it would seem that the time has now come when it could
be further developed. That too, without any real loss to Sea Powers
like the British who rely on naval operations and therefore on
blockade as their main weapon. For a modern commercial blockade
which, to be at all effective, must subject all neutral commerce to
belligerent control, not only on the high seas but " at source "
within the territories of the neutral, obviously cannot be applied
without the support of the neutral governments and the sympathy
of the neutral peoples.
If then the British now frankly and fully accepted the application
of the Wilsonian principle how would they stand ? They would lose
the arbitrary power they have enjoyed of initiating and imposing
an economic blockade for slowly starving and strangling their
enemy. This power enabled them, we will assume, to defeat
Napoleonism and Kaiserism in the interest, we will assume, of the
world at large. But this power they have, in fact, already lost. The
arbitrary assertion of it against Napoleonism cost them a war with
America and made America a naval Power. The arbitrary assertion
of it against Kaiserism was throughout controlled in its application
by America and made America a rival sea Power. It only became
really effective when exercised in conjunction with America after
23S COMMAND OF THE SEAS
its entry into war. The future exercise of it, except in association
with America, or with American approval, will be impossible.
Why not then now associate with America and remove the risk of a
naval competition that would probably end in naval conflict ?
Moreover, there is another consideration. Blockade is the weapon
of a long war of attrition and it looks as though any future war of
" all-in "or " all-out " character will be a short war of abolition.
Secondary and localized wars, such as may — and possibly must —
continue for some time yet, can be left under the old-fashioned rules
requiring close blockade and other out-of-date restrictions. But it
looks as though in any future " all-in " and " all-out " war, naval
blockade will in the first stage be rendered obsolete by air and under-
water blockade ; and as though, in the second stage, all blockade
will be made obsolete by air bombardment.
Even if this is considered as looking too far ahead, there is an
objection to economic blockade which has been made very obvious
to the British by its results in the Great War. Namely, that though
it undoubtedly in time reduces their enemy to ruin and revolution,
yet it thereby recoils almost as heavily on themselves as merchants
and middlemen by destroying the markets for their manufacturers
and making their customers self-supporting. It was the blockade
of the Napoleonic wars that made foreign countries the competitors
of the British in industries they might otherwise have monopolized
for many years.
Above and beyond all other advantages to the British in resigning
the right of extreme economic blockade to an Anglo-American
association would be that they would gain immunity for their
commerce as a neutral against belligerent interference without the
present enormous expenditure on a fleet as a " war insurance."
AMERICAN " LEGALISM " AND " ANTI-LEAGUISM "
So far then, the British and American peace movements can
combine for a common revision of sea law, and for the common
regulation of Freedom of the Seas. There is, however, one feature
in the American " outlawry " resolution — a feature clearly inspired
by American " legalism " and " anti-Leaguism " — that is not, in
the opinion of the writers, sound, and that certainly cannot easily
AND THE PEACE 239
be seconded by British peace movements. That feature is the
proposal to set up a new international jurisdiction and tribunals in
substitution for those of the Hague and of the League. Thus, the
Borah resolution (see Appendix) cites the Federal Supreme Court
as a precedent and as a pattern for a new international Court of
Justice. Whereas the Supreme Court interprets a written constitu-
tion and has behind it the sanction of a Federal force — and whereas
a resort to force to execute judgments of that jurisdiction did, in
fact, lead to one of the bloodiest of civil wars. A closer precedent
would be the Central American Court of Justice, set up in 1907 in
much the same way as a counterblast to the Hague, which had
compulsory jurisdiction but no sanctions ; and which has been a
complete failure. Apart from the risk of setting up rival judicatures
with a general jurisdiction, there is the consideration that judicial
arbitration and international litigation is of a strictly limited utility
as a preventive of war. It is a procedure of great value when there
is a definite acceptance of jurisdiction and a distinct judicial issue.
But it is a fallacy to assume that law Courts and Arbitral Tribunals
will prevent war between countries in the international relationship
any more than they prevent civil wars, or class wars, in the internal
relationships.
The " outlawry of war " movement has therefore nothing to gain
in the cause of peace by not pressing at present these " legalist "
proposals for Courts and Tribunals, in competition with those of the
Hague and the League, on the acceptance of European peoples.
That there should continue to be international Courts for the arbi-
tration of pan- American affairs is, on the other hand, desirable.
And such Courts would have a place in any regionally organized
League as hereafter proposed.
WAR—" AGGRESSION " AND " RENUNCIATION "
There remains one other difficulty to clear out of the way before
Americans and British— before " legalists " of the " outlawry "
movement and " Leaguists " of the " all-in arbitration " movement
— can get together. Both wish to outlaw war and to enthrone
peace. But you cannot renounce war until you know what you
mean by war. And both parties have at present different definitions
240 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
of war and will not accept one another's. And both are right.
Because neither definition is practical — and probably no definition
is possible.
The Americans have now adopted the French formula of renounc-
ing " war as an instrument of national policy." The British prefer
the formula of renouncing " wars of aggression " and further, define
" aggression " as refusal to arbitrate, a definition adopted also by
the " Capper " resolution (see Appendix). Either definition is
equally dangerous. The first means nothing at all. The second
may mean too much. We have already given one example — the
Spanish-American war — when it would have been disastrous. We
could easily give half a dozen others.
War is, in fact, too complex a condition to be penalized under
any treaty formula. And each renunciation of war for which each
modern State is at present prepared is far too limited and local in
character to be expressed in any general obligation. For example,
France and Italy would now be prepared to renounce war in their
relations with distant Powers like the United States, but not so in
relations with their close neighbours. The United States and Soviet
Union would be prepared to make a general renunciation of war,
naturally in good faith, but also necessarily with various tacit
reservations. The British Empire on the other hand is so con-
scientious in considering every contingency, that it is apparently
prepared to make an all-in treaty of arbitration with Uruguay but
not with Switzerland. In short, nothing more can be got on these
lines than a voeu pieux in a preamble, that means little more than
the old-fashioned invocation to Divine Providence which used to
prelude all treaties of military alliance for aggression.
But it does not follow that nothing can be done to " outlaw war "
provided that the nature of the disease be studied and the prophy-
lactics properly adapted to it. There was a time in the history of
medicine when half a dozen quite distinct diseases were all lumped
together as " inflammation of the bowels," and another score at
least as " putrid fever " ; Medicine never got beyond nostrums
and panaceas until it had distinguished the different diseases and
discerned their diff erent causes. Medical prescriptions still begin
with a pious formula meaning " Oh, Jupiter, aid us " ; but no great
reliance is placed on this pagan invocation by the patient.
AND THE PEACE 241
The formulae hitherto advanced, and any that are at all likely to
be accepted, do not, be it observed, exclude war in the shape of
armed action for police purposes. The British, like other members
of the League, cannot bind themselves not to take armed action in
support of League sanctions that might become a major offensive
operation. The Americans would certainly require to be free to
take similar police action under the Monroe doctrine. Provision
will also have to be made for minor police operations like the British
expedition to China or the American expedition to Nicaragua, even
though these may look to British and American Progressives very
like private wars of aggression for imperialist aims. Or it might
be considered necessary to have a pacific blockade and economic
boycott that would not, under the old system of international law,
have counted as war like the * ' sanitary cordon ' ' against Russia. Or it
might be a bitter war of extermination against some racial or
religious minority that similarly would not have counted as war
because of the sovereignty claimed by the ruling race — a claim that
was itself the cause of trouble. Or it might be a war of liberation
to recover one of the many national irredenta created by the peace
treaties which would, of course, be conducted under cover of sup-
porting a rising or revolt in the area coveted. All these we have
seen since the war and shall see many more in spite of " obligatory M
arbitration, treaties, and " outlawry of war " movements.
But war can be outlawed in a sense, and the American peace
movement is on sounder lines in approaching war from this point
of view than is the British movement in trying to legalize it by
League sanctions and Locarno pacts. But if the British movement
has gone rather too far in making concessions to facts, the American
movement has not yet gone far enough in this process. For war
can only be outlawed progressively and practically, that is, by
dealing not merely with the entry into war but with the exercise
of it. Otherwise there is a danger that denunciation of war will
become, like the declaration of war, merely a paper formula. The
controversy between those who would denounce " wars of
aggression " and those who would renounce " war as an instrument
of policy " is really as academic as the controversy between Freedom
and Command of the Seas.
242 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
WAR MUST BE STOPPED AT EACH STAGE
War, and more especially naval war, cannot be abolished by a
a stroke of the pen — the sword is mightier than the pen in its own
sphere. All that the pen can do as yet is to restrict the use of the
sword and so regulate its lunges and parries — that the least damage
may be done in a duel that cannot yet be suppressed.
The fears of navalists lest their freedom in war be hampered, and
the fears of pacifists lest any sort of war be given any sort of accept-
ance, have diverted the attention of reformers from making use of
what is one of the most helpful facts for peacemakers — namely,
that war is not as jurists represent it — a status differentiated from
peace by a deadline that has to be crossed formally and finally.
This legal fiction has its use for popular pacifist propaganda no
doubt. Because, just as in war propaganda, the first step is to
distinguish between the enemy and yourself, and represent him as
an inhuman Boche or Bolshy or Borjoy, and yourself as a crusader
and a patriot, so in peace propaganda a caricature of war must be
clearly outlined in order that war may be " outlawed " in public
opinion. But this fiction is not fact. The fact is that war as a
disease is a phase of crowd psychology — a failure in the structure
of civilization — a fever in the body politic of humanity, that grows
gradually unless checked. War, as an act of sovereignty, is a police
measure for the protection of a community that may become a
danger to civilization as a whole. War as an international institution
is merely a rough and ready recognition of the fact that, beyond a
certain point, a change of regulation becomes necessary and certain
regulations respected in peace become unrealizable. The crossing of
this line, like the crossing of a frontier, is rightly made a Rubicon
so that a final and fatal step may be a matter for reflection. But
just as the crossing of frontiers by armed forces is to-day no longer
a sufficient evidence of the first recourse to war by a nation, so the
frontier in international law between war and peace is no longer
sufficient as a criterion. The time has come when instead of one
line between war and peace there might be several, at each of which
the moderation of the more pacific nationals and the mediation of
the peaceable neutrals might be given a procedure for expression
AND THE PEACE 243
and effort, and the war machines and war momentums might be
given pause.
Such a classification of war is no concession to the disease. On
the contrary, it is a contradiction of the now prevailing concession
that after a certain very early phase of the disease further prophy-
lactics against more fatal paroxysms are useless. War conditions
are as much more complicated and comprehensive now than in the
past as peace conditions are. There is to-day not a peace relation-
ship above the line and a war relationship below it, each governed
by a different set of human and divine laws. That is legal theory
and latitudinarian theology. And with these we have no concern
here. But a more sound and sane view of war is that of a descending
curve of common sympathies and common sense in the relations
between two communities. This leads at first slowly then swiftly
as warlike interests and ideals become respectively profitable and
passionate through a whole series of war phases. Some of these
phases of war, such as a pacific blockade or an economic boycott,
have already been classified by international lawyers and considered
as transitional. Others still M above the line " are rupture of
diplomatic relations like that which we have to-day with Russia,
closing of the frontier such as Lithuania has to-day with Poland,
or a police occupation such as that of the British in China or of
the Americans in Nicaragua. All of these last entail loss of life,
the use of armed force, and have all the features and effects of war.
But they are all of them already recognized as not necessarily
transforming the relationship of the countries concerned on to a
war footing.
Now the worst of warfare in the future will be that it will tend
to pass much more swiftly through these preliminary processes in
which it can be kept under control with comparative ease. Arab
or Berber tribes may endure having their habitations bombed from
the air as a police measure of peaceful penetration in the cause of
civilization. This can be done in the name of peace because they
are not Sovereign States, because international law takes no cog-
nisance of them, and because they cannot therefore declare war.
But it is certain that the first air bomb dropped on a European
capital will blow that community straight into the full blast of
war psychology and the full blaze of an unrestricted war of reprisals.
244 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
It would seem therefore to be the first task of those British con-
cerned with the enthronement of peace, or of those Americans
concerned with the outlawry of war, now to extend the classification
of hostilities so as to throw as much responsibility as possible on the
State that passes from one phase to another and to give pacifist
public opinion an opportunity at each phase to call for consideration.
THERE ARE WARS AND WARS
That police wars are still indispensable will be admitted by all but
the most fanatical pacifists. That idealist wars for national liberties
or irredentist wars for native lands are probable will be allowed by
all but the most cynical politicians. That even political wars for
imperialist interests or ideals are impossible, only the most
optimistic Utopists would assert. That in an " all-in " war which
includes most of the principal Powers they will fight " all-out " irre-
spective of restrictions or regulations is also now only too obvious.
Wherefore men of good will who seek their promised peace on earth
will not best ensue it by enclosing the legal status of peace in a
ring fence of international law courts and arbitral tribunals. The
Dove of Peace cannot be kept by having a wall built round it
as the Wise Men of Gotham tried to keep the cuckoo and the
summer.
War is a disease that cannot be exorcised by the spells of wise
women or wizard spell-binders. Peacemakers had better begin by
clearly defining each step and each stage into war from the first
stage of the pacific pressure of one people on another for the common
good, down to the last stage of an all-in and all-out Armageddon.
Then at each step and at each stage those nationals who retain
their patience and prudence, and those neutrals who are in a position
to bring pressure to bear, can use whatever machinery for pacific
settlement is available and appropriate.
What has to be prevented in the first place is the automatic
declanchement of the war machines that gather momentum from
their own mobilization until one is shattered or civilization itself
is shaken into ruins. What has to be prevented in the second place
is the risk lest Powers with large naval and military armaments
may independently initiate intervention in the affairs of other
AND THE PEACE 245
nations claiming that it is a police operation in the interest of
civilization ; whereas they really have interested and imperialistic
objects in view. An " outlawry of war " procedure to be really
effective must guard both these approaches to war.
HOW WARS HAVE BEEN STOPPED
Let us look at the symptoms of the war evils before suggesting
a treatment. Since the Great War, though all the world wanted
peace and " peace " has been nominally maintained, the peoples of
both Europe and America have, as a matter of fact, been drifted into
police wars and have even been driven into political wars.
Take the British only. Since 1919 they have, without entering
into formal war, engaged in all the features of war with Russians
Chinese, Arabs, Afghans, Egyptians, and Irish. They have not
realized it in some cases ; and in others, when they did realize it,
they themselves stopped it. But in the two cases in which war
was stopped, those of Russia and Turkey, they could only do so
by the threat of an unconstitutional " strike action " in the first
case and by almost as severe a strain on their imperial institutions
in the second. When the Trades Union Councils of Action brought
about peace with Socialist Russia, and the Dominion Governments
brought about peace with Nationalist Turkey, they were doing
useful work that should have been done by proper machinery
without straining as it did the whole political structure. And with
a proper classification of war in international law such machinery
can be provided internally, imperially, and internationally.
HOW WARS SHOULD BE STOPPED BY STAGES
We are only concerned with naval warfare here, and it would be
out of place to develop this in too great detail. But as the Anglo-
American association, here advocated, will be the sanction of a
new system of sea law in war, its first task in framing that system
should be to fix new " frontiers " for the various forms of war.
These will in turn give more and better opportunities than at present
exist for maintaining peace by arbitration and mediation. A
246 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
present at the outbreak of war a powerful neutral, or neutrals,
enquire of the future belligerents what rules for the regulation of
neutral commerce they intend to impose — as did the United States
in 1914. And if after an outbreak of war belligerents impose
restrictions which neutrals consider excessive the latter protest and
prevent this — as' did the neutrals in the case of the Italo-Turkish
hostilities in the Dardanelles in 1910, and the Americans and British
in the Russo-Japanese war at the beginning of the century. What
is wanted now is that naval warfare be classified into a few main
phases corresponding to the main forms it may now take.
Thus a first phase might be that of a national commercial boycott
of the enemy, and a blockade of the enemy naval forces and for-
tresses only ; which would not be allowed to affect neutral com-
mercial interests at all. This phase of war might for the present
be left as a legitimate means of pressure which should be still open
to any national policy and would not call for any international
intervention beyond the usual recognition of belligerency. Though
it would, of course, be excluded by any treaty between the two
parties which renounced war as an instrument of policy.
The next phase, for which the approval of an Armed Neutrality
would have to be obtained under existing international law, would
be that of hostilities between the armed forces and a close com-
mercial blockade on the old lines. This would be war as hitherto
understood, and the rules of international law as hitherto applied
could continue in force for its regulation with modern modifications.
For an Armed Neutrality, based on an Anglo-American association,
could now give these old rules the development that they had
almost attained when the Great War broke out, by establishing the
immunity of private property at sea in restriction of the right of
blockade.
This would be of great benefit to these two Powers themselves
as neutrals in the secondary private wars that are likely to continue
for some years yet ; while it would be no serious bar to their
belligerency in any secondary or police war they might undertake
on these old-fashioned lines.
And the third and final phase of naval war would be represented
by such an unrestricted economic blockade and sea and air bombard-
ment as developed in the last war and will, unless prevented, destroy
AND THE PEACE 247
civilization in the next. This is an inhuman innovation in war
which calls urgently for innovations in international law. It should
be made " illegal " to put any people through this " third degree "
of warfare, and those who do so should rightly be regarded as
" outlaw." It should therefore be provided that any belligerent
who feels it requisite to engage in such extremities of warfare by
way of reprisals should have to justify this action to neutrals,
whether associated in an Armed Neutrality or in a League of Nations
or both, by explaining the enemy act which called for reprisal and
by exposing the war aims on account of which the interests of
neutrals and the existence of civilization are being imperilled.
This was more or less done during the Great War and has also been
done, more or less, in previous wars whenever the exercises of
belligerency seemed to neutral third parties to be too extreme for the
ends in view and too expensive for their own neutral nationals.
Such neutral intervention has, in a more civilized or sentimental
generation, been made effective on humanitarian grounds alone.
For example, when Turkey extended its suppression of the Greek
War of Independence to the point of sacking the whole Peloponnese
and of selling the population into slavery, an armed neutrality,
just a century ago, destroyed the Turco-Egyptian fleet at Navarino.
What is now required is not so much to outlaw all formal
war, which can be little more than a pious wish, or to outlaw
certain forms of war, such as aeroplanes, submarines, gas-bombs,
and explosive bullets, which is a matter of policy ; but to throw
as much onus and odium as possible on recourse to the more onerous
and odious weapons of war.
Under such a regulation belligerents will have to weigh the cost
before having recourse to these extreme forms of war and will not
lightly resort to them by way of reprisals and under cover of
international law. It seems safe to assert that had such a gradation
of war existed in 1914, and had neutral America had a firm footing
in international law for penalizing, with an embargo or with entry
into the war, each successive recourse by either belligerent to un-
restricted warfare, America need never have entered the war and
Europe could by now have established peace. What is now required
is a formal obligation to obtain neutral approval at each entry of
the war into a more extreme form ; so that an Armed Neutrality
248 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
and, or, the League of Nations, at each reprisal that sends the war
" rattling into barbarism," may have an opportunity and an
obligation of enforcing the Wilsonian principle that there must be —
" absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas outside territorial waters
alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in
part by international action for the enforcement of international
covenants."
AN ANGLO-AMERICAN TREATY AGAINST WAR
So much then as regards the future revision of international law,
which can only be dealt with here very broadly and briefly. Now
to return to Freedom of the Seas and the Wilsonian principle.
It is, as we have shown, the exclusion of this principle from the
peace terms that has, in the course of a few years, caused the present
rift in Anglo-American relations and the present risk of a rivalry in
naval armaments. How can this principle now be brought back
as the foundation for a future world peace in a form acceptable to
the different points of view of the British and American pacifist
movements and also in a form agreeable to the divergent policies
of the professional and political rulers of the two peoples ?
The Wilsonian principle will obviously have to be recorded in a
Treaty between the two States of which the sanction will be their
joint sea power, to which other sea Powers may as soon as possible
accede. Therefore a formula must be found that will make a
popular appeal by presenting itself as an outlawry of war and that
will, at the same time, be acceptable to Governments as a practical
appreciation of hard facts. The following is only a suggestion.
Such forms of words have their importance, but they can be almost
infinitely varied. Whereas, in the opinion of the writers, the general
line of action here laid down is, broadly speaking, the only one
likely to lead to any satisfactory settlement.
It is suggested, then, that a Treaty might now be concluded
between the British Empire and the United States which would —
(a) reciprocally renounce war as an instrument of national policy
or recourse to war as a settlement of their disputes. Which would
— (b) recognize that naval armaments should be reduced by ratio
to the force required for an imperial and international police.
Which would — (c) resolve that no international police operations
AND THE PEACE 249
should be undertaken by one party except in conjunction with, or
by the consent of, the other. And which should — (d) provide that
the parties would concert together for the revision of international
law in the regulation of naval warfare.
This would, in other words, impose an obligation not to prepare
or prosecute major warfare : to disarm to the lowest limit con-
sistent with the prevention of piratical warfare and the protection
of their coasts under the new conditions established by the guarantee
of associated Sea Power : last, but not least, to provide a procedure
to check either party, or any third party, from passing out of
restricted into unrestricted naval warfare. For the first effect of
these combined obligations would be that, in order to relieve one
Government from having to obtain the consent of the other to each
separate and successive act of a police war, these acts would have
to be grouped and graduated under the rules of international law
as revised.
By thus bringing the forms of international law again into relation
with the facts of war we shall get, on the one hand, the means and
method for " continuous mediation," the absence of which frustrated
America's attempt to end the Great War in the winter of 1916-17
and forced it to enter the war in order to make peace. We shall
get, on the other hand, stages and stopping-places where the
momentum of the war machines can be braked in their headlong
career and the dogs of war checked in their hot pursuit of havoc.
The absurdity of the present arrangement by which the forces,
neutral or national, in favour of peace are formally debarred from
intervention once war is declared will be ended. They will be
enabled to develop and use their peace machinery, whatever it
may be, as '* legally " as the war forces now use their war machines
for carrying the war from strength to strength. It is best to recog-
nize that in the present stage of the development of public opinion
all wars cannot be stopped all the time ; having done that we shall
at once realize how all wars can be stopped some of the time and
some wars all of the time.
VARIOUS CHECKS ON WAR COMPARED
Nor would this continuous check on the exercise of war in any
way weaken such other checks on entry into war as have already
250 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
been arranged or may later be agreed. These checks on entering
into war may be classified broadly as (a) moral checks, (b) mora-
toriums, and (c) material checks.
The moral check, which involves indicting and, if necessary,
penalizing the belligerent for aggression, or some other offence
requiring definition, is difficult, and, as we claim to have shown,
dangerous. The Americans are, in our opinion, justified in objecting
to the sanctions of the Covenant which would have to be applied
on such moral grounds, and the British are equally justified in
objecting to the American reliance on the moral authority of
International Tribunals.
These objections do not apply to the principle of the moratorium
or postponement of war pending a joint enquiry, which is the
principle of the Bryan Conciliation Treaties, of which the further
establishment and extension is favoured by the British Government.
(See later).
The material checks on war, like disarmament or neutralization
of zones and seas, are better still. For aggression in such cases can
generally be automatically assigned. There can hardly be any
dispute as to which party first arms in defiance of a disarmament
agreement, or advances into a zone or sea in defiance of its demilitar-
ization. For example, the responsibility for the violation of Belgian
neutrality could not be rejected by Germany. Whereas, responsi-
bility for aggression, as imposed by Art. 231 of the Treaty of
Versailles, on general grounds, has been resented and will, at the
first opportunity, be repudiated. The Geneva Protocol very properly
provided that violation of a demilitarized zone should be equivalent
to a recourse to war. The neutralization of Narrow Seas, advocated
above, would be a similar material check easily enforcible by sea
power.
But the best check on war would be an Armed Neutrality based
on Anglo-American sea power, not only stopping entry into war
but also the exercise of it at each successive stage. As we have
seen (Chaps. I and II) the naval force of neutrals has been hitherto
the only real sanction for international law. And as we have also
seen (Chap. Ill) it was at first the obvious and only sanction con-
templated for the Peace League that was to restore the regime of
international law after the war. It is still, no less obviously, the
AND THE PEACE 231
only means of bringing the United Kingdom and the United States
together for reconstruction and re-establishing international law at
sea without running our heads against the objections of the Americans
to the present League and its sanctions.
HOW CAN BRITISH AND AMERICANS COME TOGETHER
What then, is the line a British Government should take so as
to bring British and Americans together ? Can this be done without
years of education of British and American public opinion ? We
think it can if the avenues of approach to the better understanding
as here outlined be explored by a British Government.
Unfortunately this question is one in which the British people
cannot be relied on to react solely to reason. Public opinion
generally reacts to sentiment, and there is, in this case, a traditional
sentiment that can be only too easily exploited by opposition
interests. Indeed, a Liberal or a Labour Government that faced
facts and tried to substitute at one sweep anything so abstract and
novel as an Anglo-American association at sea for something so
consecrated and concrete as British battleships might deserve well
of its country but would not get its deserts. And we have already
said that the educational powers of a Conservative Government,
through its contact with the ruling class and the Press and
the reputation that party possesses for putting national before
international interests, would enable it to carry out concessions
that it could easily make fatal to its opponents if undertaken by
them.
A Liberal or Labour Government could best succeed by effecting
such a dramatic change of atmosphere on taking office, as would
carry its first objective with a rush and get the opposition on the
run. In order to recover the confidence of our transatlantic cousins,
without risking the confidence of our own countrymen, recourse
would have to be had to a certain generosity of gesture.
GESTURES AND GIFTS
The world's a stage, and the art of political leadership is the art of
playing a lead. All schools of acting now have classes of gestures —
252 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
gestures how to come into a room and how to go out, how to shake
hands or shake a fist. Politicians have also to learn how to come
into office and how to go out, how to join hands across the sea and
how to bang a fist on the board.
A gesture in foreign affairs must cost little and yet convey much
meaning. Therefore, if it is to get across to the audience, it must
appeal to their peculiar point of view. Now the particular vanity
of the British is Command of the Seas and that of the Americans is
Freedom of the Seas. So that an effective gesture by one party
will do well to appeal to the respective u vanity " of the other in
the hope of getting a corresponding gesture that will give it some
sop for its own many-headed Cerberus.
Let us take first as an illustration a series of moves that graduate
from mere gestures into real gifts — that range in fact from a little
u hot air " that would just take the chill off the atmosphere to the
conversion of stones of offence into corner-stones and foundation-
stones of a better relationship. A pure gesture, for example, might
make Stratford-on-Avon an international territory under both flags
and administered by this English Speaking Union. A further
development of the same idea would put the Bahamas, that resort
of American millionaires and rum-runners, under joint administra-
tion. This would be more effective as a gesture because of its
tangible concession to the Monroe doctrine and its tactful considera-
tion for American municipal legislation.
A " FREEDOM OF THE SEAS " GESTURE
But a gesture and a gift that would appeal to American " Freedom
of the Seas " sentiment would be a clear declaration of policy,
preferably in Parliament, by the Prime Minister in the House of
Commons and by the Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords, that
we are prepared to propose a revision of the Covenant of the League
of Nations so as to embody the second of President Wilson's Fourteen
Points, thus in effect renouncing the right of a private blockade in a
private war.
In return for some such gesture as this the Americans, who are
usually ready to outbid us in generosity, might make us some gift
that would appeal equally to British sentiment and equally appease
AND THE PEACE 253
British suspicions. And then " after compliments," as they say in
Oriental negotiations, it might be possible to include in a future
settlement a deal by which a British concession to the Monroe
doctrine would be balanced against an American concession to
Command of the Sea. For example, we might let all our West
Indian and South American territories be included in a demilitarized
zone, and the Americans might concede to our insular position and
peculiar ideals some sort of superiority in surface warships of the
police cruiser type under the future ratio of navies as reduced to
forces for police purposes.
A " MONROE DOCTRINE " GESTURE
Or a British Government might give notice to the League of
Nations that it would not apply economic sanctions under Art. XVI
of the Covenant, by naval action, without the United States' consent,
and that it would not take such action against any American State
without the United States' co-operation. This would only be
formulating what is already the fact : that no League blockade can
be at all effective without American approval, and that no such
blockade contrary to the Monroe doctrine can be enforced at all.
The more whole-hearted and whole-hogging Leaguers might
dislike this as looking like turning down Geneva in order to take
up Washington, because they believe that the American outlawers
have deep designs against the League and against the Locarno Pact.
We shall let Senator Borah, leader of the American outlawers,
answer this himself from a recent article (New York Times, 5th
February, 1928) : —
" Is there anything which one can conceive so well calculated to
advance the cause of peace and to strengthen the League and Locarno
as a pledge among the Great Powers that they will never recognize war
as an instrument for the settlement of international disputes and that
they will adjust their differences in accordance with the methods provided
in the League and Locarno for peaceful adjustment ? If the leading Powers
make this pledge and keep it, there will indeed be little chance of war.
If they do not keep it, neither the League nor Locarno have been
destroyed."
Again, our French friends might dislike such a gesture as looking
254 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
like cutting them out on the line in which M. Briand gave the lead
last year, but which they have been unable to carry to its logical
conclusion in their Treaty negotiation. But they have no cause to
complain. The British have pledged their last man and last shilling
for defence of the French land frontier in the Locarno Pact. The
frontier of England is the sea. The framework of the Empire is the
sea. The seizure of a British tramp steamer is as serious for the
British as the seizure of a French frontier station is to the French-
The only safeguard of the British is Command of the Sea, and that
is seriously challenged. France has the safeguard of the strongest
army and air force in the world, reinforced by the Locarno guaran-
tees and by the garrisons maintained in the Rhineland in disregard
of the international interests of Europe. We therefore may, with
no injury to French interests and in justice to the interests of our-
selves and others, secure our own safety and strengthen the real
sanctions for peace by association with America.
The French and every other people stand to gain, not lose, by an
association between British and Americans. And, despite some
recent Anglo-American rapprochement due to reciprocal reductions
in cruiser construction, the French and every other people know
that these two leading Sea Powers have "parted brass-rags.''
Though some diplomatic circles indulge in " schadenfreude " over
this, the wiser French observers deplore it as a disaster to the League
and a danger to the peace.
Mons. Jacques Bainville, writing in the Action Franchise, the
organ of the Right (22nd January, 1928), stated that as Great
Britain is purely a Naval Power her contributory vajue to European
security or to the application of League sanctions is nullified by the
United States.
" If England," he says, " refuses to tie her hands or sign a blank
cheque it is not merely because of her tradition of splendid isolation nor
because of her sacred egoism. The knot of the crucial problem is to be
found in the phrase ' Freedom of the Seas.' If the American Senate
disavowed President Wilson it was because he had yielded to Mr. Lloyd
George on this question. If, after the failure of the Geneva Conference
for the limitation of cruisers, President Coolidge announces the con-
struction of an armada, it must be understood as meaning simply this —
that one of the greatest Naval Powers in the world intends to declare that
AND THE PEACE 255
in the future Great Britain must, like any other country, renounce the
right of blockade or fight if she means to keep it.
" Now if the worst came to the worst Great Britain might well fight
to preserve this arm of blockade for her personal defence. It is unlikely
that she would enter into conflict with the United States in order to use
the right of blockade as a sanction on behalf of the League of Nations and
for the benefit of other countries."
We commend this view of an eminent French publicist to those
extreme Leaguers who resent constructive criticism of the Council
or Covenant as at present constituted. And we, who are both
supporters of the League, believe that the Washington Mahomet
will not come to the Geneva Mountain as things are, but that the
mountain can be moved by faith. We believe that it will have to
be moved if the sanctions to which the French attach so much
importance are not to be a delusion and a danger.
DANGER OF DELAY
We have shown in Chapter III that something has already been
done on both sides to retrace the wrong course laid by both countries
since the Geneva debacle. But there is no time to be lost in follow-
ing up the concessions as to warship construction by the British and
Americans. For the peace of Europe is not secured and will not be
secured until it includes the Freedom of the Seas ; and the danger has
actually been increased by the peace machinery set up since the war.
For supposing that war between two Great Powers breaks out on the
Continent of Europe, despite the efforts of the League. Then,
either the League of Nations functions, or it fails finally. If the
latter, the struggle will spread and the Great War repeats itself,
with America intervening this time, in all probability, against the
British. But if the League functions, presumably one Power will
be adjudged the aggressor and, under Art. XVI of the Covenant,
be blockaded. The blockade of the aggressor will have — in order
to be in any way effective — to be enforced against all members and
non-members of the League of Nations, amongst the latter being
the United States of America. And the naval sanctions for the
blockade will be exercised mainly by the British Navy. This again
would lead to a conflict between British and American Command
256 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
of the Seas. And this is the sort of dangerous dilemma that gives
uneasiness to experts and that underlies the panics in the Press.
Lord Cecil, for example, tells us, and he should know (House of
Lords, 15th February, 1928) :
"... I look at the situation (in Europe) as precarious, with no immediate
danger threatening, but not likely to be long continued in this condition.
I believe that if we are to erect barriers against war, it must be done
within the next three or four years — five or six years at the outside.
That is the time when we shall have the feeling of the late war to back us
and enable us to erect these barriers. If we do not do it then it will not
be done at all."
Sir Austen Chamberlain, in November 1927 last, replying to a
vote of censure moved by the Labour Party, which, amongst other
things, regretted the slow progress of the League of Nations Com-
mission on Disarmament, spoke as follows :
" Suppose," he said — and it is a supposition which we can permit
ourselves, in view of what he called our close and affectionate relations
with France ; if those relations were not as close and intimate as they
are, it is an illustration that none of us would like to use — " suppose," he
said, " that France was called an aggressor by the League ; suppose that
we were ordered to blockade the French coast and to cut off France
from commerce with the outer world ; what consequences might that
have for us, and, what Navy should we need, if we were to undertake
such obligations as that ? "
One of the present writers here interrupted the Foreign Secretary
to remind him that we have that obligation already under the
Covenant, to which he replied :
" There is an immense difference between our obligations under the
Covenant as it stands — onerous as they are, in some respects dangerous as
they may be thought to be by reason of the fact that Great Powers have
stood outside the League who were expected to form part of it — there is
a great difference between the Covenant as it stands and the kind of fresh
obligations that the Rt. Hon. gentleman (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald)
vaguely thinks we might undertake in order to pool the security of the
world. His Majesty's Government have pursued a more restricted, a
more modest policy." (Hansard, November 24th, 1927, col. 2114, Vol. 210,
No. 124.)
AND THE PEACE 257
This suggests that the Foreign Secretary has in his mind the
difficulties that might arise with the United States through the
application of the existing Covenant of the League, apart from
the added obligations proposed under the Protocol.
Yet there is no evidence so far of any official attempt being made,
either at Washington or in London, to clarify this difficult situation.
And it might become critical at any time through the League of
Nations. All that is being done on both sides of the Atlantic is to
build warships.
Yet, as the King's Speech at the opening of the 1928 Session tells
us, negotiations are proceeding between London and Washington
for a new Arbitration Treaty. What an opportunity these negotia-
tions offer for restoring relations of confidence and co-operation by
gestures for the outlawry of war or by gifts as to the revision of the
League ! Why should not a British Government meet half-way the
American movement for outlawry of war ? Sir Austen Chamberlain
has already said in Parliament that war between the British and
the Americans is " outlawed in our hearts." Why not then outlaw
it over our hand and seal in a solemn treaty ?
ANGLO-AMERICAN ARBITRATION
Since the first Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty of 1897, arbi-
tration has been an important instrument in assuring amity between
the two peoples. It would require a book in itself to review the
history of arbitration in Anglo-American relations and to explain
its failures and successes. The difficulty of making arbitration
treaties has hitherto lain in finding general formulae that will reserve
the constitutional powers of the American Senate in foreign rela-
tions, and that will recognize the requirements of American domestic
policy as to excluding from arbitration special subjects, some of
secondary importance. Failure in these respects has led to rejection
by the Senate of two important arbitration treaties, that of 1897
(Olney-Paunceforte) and that of 1912 (Knox-Bryce). But in spite
of the special local difficulties of arbitration above referred to, the
" legalism " of American public life has made arbitration treaties
specially popular with American Governments anxious to placate
pacific opinion and " play a lead " in foreign relations. At present
258 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
two treaties are in force, one of 1908 (Root-Bryce) and one of 1914
(Bryan-Spring Rice). Both of these form part of a series concluded
by the United States with other Powers.
The Root (1908) series are arbitration treaties which refer to the
Hague Court all legal disputes and the interpretation of treaties,
provided they do not affect " the vital interests," the independence
or " honour " of the contracting States and do not concern " third
parties." This formula, first found in the Anglo-French Treaty of
1903, of course allows of almost any dispute being excluded. But
as, in fact, arbitration cannot be forced on an unwilling Government
the formula does not deserve all the condemnation it has received
from pacifist publicists. Their ambition to put Governments under
constraint to arbitrate by " all-in " obligations has dangers which
cannot here be dealt with, but are obvious to all those with any
experience of public affairs. It must suffice to point out that public
opinion has its phases and that politics has its parties, so that an
inevitable and inviolable obligation honestly engaged in, may, under
certain circumstances, greatly embarrass and exacerbate a subsequent
crisis developed under different conditions. The moral onus of an
obligation and the odium of its repudiation are useful pillars of
peace, but should not be overloaded.
FRANCO- AMERICAN ARBITRATION
The " Root " series of arbitration treaties have come up periodically
for renewal in 1913, 1918 and 1923. In view of their renewal and
possible revision this spring, France, whose treaty was earliest in
point of date (23rd February) submitted (June 1927) a
draft of a " Pact of Perpetual Friendship " which should " renounce,
war as an instrument of national policy," and resolve that disputes
be only settled by " pacific means." This was a fine gesture — but
it failed for reasons that do not here concern us. Mr. Kellogg took six
months to think it over. He then proposed (December 1927) a
revision of the Root formula by substituting for " National honour "
and " vital interest " the forms " domestic matters " and the
" Monroe doctrine." And shortly after (5th January, 1928) he
proposed not a bi-lateral renunciation of war between France and
America, but a general " outlawry of war." He stated that :
AND THE PEACE 259
" The Government of the United States is prepared, therefore, to
concert with the Government of France with a view to the conclusion
of a Treaty among the principal Powers of the world, open to signature
by all as an instrument of national policy in favour of the pacific settle-
ment of international disputes."
To this M. Briand replied the following day in a note which con-
cluded as follows :
"lam authorised to inform you that the Government of the Republic
is ready to join with the United States Government in submitting for
the approval of all nations an agreement which shall be signed beforehand
by France and the United States and by the terms of which the high
contracting parties shall bind themselves to refrain from any war of
aggression and shall declare that they will have recourse, for the settlement
of disputes of whatever nature, which may arise between them, to all
possible pacific means. The high contracting parties would undertake
to bring this agreement to the notice of all other States and to invite
them to subscribe to it. . . ."
The introduction of the qualifying " war of aggression " was,
practically, because France is not prepared to outlaw war with
European neighbours and, professedly, in order to safeguard French
obligations to the League. Mr. Kellogg took exception to this, and
the final form of the Treaty was consequently that of his original
draft plus a preamble " outlawing war." For the fact is that the
Senate looks on any reference to " wars of aggression " both as an
illicit recognition of the League, that body having concentrated of
late years on definitions of war as a crime, and also as an unlimited
reservation of the full renunciation of war.
Now, how does this negotiation affect Anglo-American naval
relations ? In the first place the negotiations for the new Treaty
with Great Britain have begun on the same basis. In the second
place this "Kellogg" Treaty is little, if any, advance on the old
" Root " Treaty. For even if the new Treaty does not injure the
" all-in " scope of the Bryan conciliation Treaties, yet undoubtedly
exclusions of " domestic matters " and the " Monroe doctrine "
are even more awkward corners to steer arbitration agreements past
han the vague " vital interests " and " national honour." Already
Anglo-American arbitrations have taken place on issues that might
have been considered as involving " national honour " and " vital
26o COMMAND OF THE SEAS
interests." But an allegation that an issue involves the Monroe
doctrine or domestic interests is more likely to be fatal in the Senate
and may cover as wide a field.
ANGLO-AMERICAN CONCILIATION
The fact is that the Root, Kellogg or any arbitration Treaty, with
a reference to The Hague Court and reduced to terms likely to pass
the Senate, is a much less valuable instrument than the Conciliation
Treaties that hold up all disputes of any sort for a year while
being judged by a Permanent Conciliation Commission. These
Conciliation Treaties of 1914 have not yet been used, and the Per-
manent Commissions have not been kept at their full complement.
But Americans and British can always best settle disputes between
themselves by themselves and much better than by reference to the
arbitration of third parties. Wherefore, for the purpose of any
possible dispute about naval affairs, in which Freedom of the Seas
and the Monroe doctrine and naval estimates are involved, the
conciliation procedure is a real safeguard and the arbitration pro-
cedure is not.
This point is well developed in the British memorandum on
security (19th January, 1928), and the present policy of the British
Government clearly — and correctly — favours conciliation in prefer-
ence to arbitration. The memo, runs : —
" 20. In 1922 the Assembly of the League adopted a resolution urging
upon all members of the League the advantage of conciliation as a
method of solving disputes and inviting them to conclude agreements
for setting up conciliation commissions. With this resolution His
Britannic Majesty's Government in Great Britain are profoundly in
sympathy. The essence of conciliation is that it does not attempt to
impose a settlement, but that it frames for the consideration of the
parties to the dispute recommendations and terms calculated to compose
the conflict of view. It thus brings to bear upon the question at issue
the efforts of impartial and qualified statesmen free from the bias
which is inevitable among those who are nationals of one of the countries
which are parties to the dispute. It has also this further advantage
that recommendations made by impartial bodies after profound study
of the facts of the dispute are bound to merit the support of public
opinion in other countries and will thereby possess the greatest weight
AND THE PEACE 261
with the States between which the dispute has arisen. 21. The
fundamental distinction between justiciable and non- justiciable disputes
is one that must be borne in mind in framing any model conciliation
agreement. Justiciable disputes should be referred to bodies of men
who are accustomed to give binding decisions and who are in consequence
accustomed to base their decision on rules of law which are obligatory
for the parties. Non- justiciable disputes cannot be solved by the
application of any such rules of law. Such disputes should not, therefore,
be submitted to bodies of judges accustomed to apply rules of law.
Treaties which provide that where the parties do not accept the
recommendations of a conciliation commission the dispute should be
referred to the Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague
should be discouraged."
CONCILIATION AND ARBITRATION COMPARED
Two examples of the truth of this view can be supplied from the
personal experience of the writers. First as to Conciliation. The
procedure of the Conciliation Treaties has never yet been used
between British and Americans. But it is not generally known that
its existence exercised a remarkably repressive effect on the contro-
versies between the United States and Great Britain over the
blockade. Without this procedure as a possible recourse, the;
diplomatic channel might not have been able to keep the flood of
difficulties caused by the British blockade from sweeping away the
bridges between the two countries.
Next as to Arbitration. The Arbitration procedure of reference
to The Hague Tribunal was used for the more important issues in the
great clearing up of century-old controversies and claims between
Great Britain and America before the war. There was then a
general agreement between the two Governments that the time had
come to " clean the slate " of these old scores and to write off or
pay off bad debts against one another that were still making bad
blood in the fourth and fifth generation.
One of these controversies concerned a quarrel indirectly con-
nected with the Freedom of the Seas, dating back to the War of
Independence. The preliminary processes of the cleaning up were
in the hands of two subordinate " scrubs," a British diplomat and
an American State Department lawyer. The smaller questions they
settled outright by hard haggling, the results being recorded in
262 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
Conventions. For the larger, they had to find a procedure that
would give the settlement more authority and guard it against
attack. In this particular dispute, which was most contentious
and complicated, and which incidentally might have been held to
concern both the " Monroe doctrine " and " domestic matters," it
was evident that the most solemn sacrifices of judicial arbitration
would not be superfluous. So the Root Treaty was resorted to and
the terms of reference were drawn up by the two officials. The
Tribunal was then convened with impressive ceremonial ; and for
weeks the Law Officers and legal luminaries of the Governments con-
cerned made speeches of immense length and learning for corre-
sponding fees. Then the three neutral and two national arbitrators,
all judges or jurists of international standing, met to draw up their
judicial award, and at once agreed that one party had won on
certain issues and another on others. For, as one said, such an
award was already adumbrated in the terms of reference. The two
national arbitrators were then very sensibly assigned the drafting
of the award, each on the issues in which his side was successful ;
and, equally sensibly, they turned over the task to their expert
advisers — the diplomat and lawyer — who had had themselves attached
to the proceedings as silent and insignificant supernumeraries.
Which, so far as judicial procedure goes, is much as though the House
of Lords had its judgment written by the solicitors' clerks of the two
parties. The award was then proclaimed with all due pomp, and
published — it occupied a whole sheet of the Times — with general
approval ; and is being applied to this day.
Now this glimpse behind the scenes of possibly the most formal
of the great Anglo-American judicial arbitrations has been given,
not by way of criticizing — still less of casting suspicion on — judicial
arbitration. The procedure followed was not only proper, but
very practical. It ensured the necessary authority for a settlement
without risking its actuality. The real facts have been revealed
for the purpose of proving that British and Americans can " con-
ciliate " their differences between themselves by themselves, if
there is a will to settle, as there was before the war. That the actual
wording of arbitration Treaties, even the actual working of arbitra-
tion machinery, does not much matter except in so far as it may
slightly hamper or help diplomacy in doing its job. And therefore
AND THE PEACE 263
that an international instrument, broad in its wording and bilateral
in its working, like the Bryan Conciliation procedure, is, on the
whole, better for settling differences in Anglo-American relations
than the more guarded wording and more general working of a
multi-lateral Arbitration Treaty.
So much, then, in the way of suggestions as to what might be done
as the first steps in the first stage of a fresh start towards peace. A
start that must be made at once and that must not be allowed to
stop until all danger of a further relapse on the expiration of the
armaments moratorium under the Washington Treaty in 193 1 is
removed. We have now to deal very briefly with the possibilities of
a later stage.
ANGLO-AMERICAN ASSOCIATION AND LEAGUE REVISION
We have above attempted to show how the policies and proposals
of American pacifists in the outlawry of war movement can be in the
main and at once, accepted and furthered by British supporters of
the League so far certainly as naval disarmament and Freedom of
the Seas is concerned. We have now to show how, if such an
association between the two movements can be arranged for the
establishment of a peace at sea, it might lead on to the extension of
that peace to the land. This is looking on beyond our immediate
objective. But one of our arguments in advocating an Anglo-
American association for Freedom of the Seas is that it is a necessary
foundation on which to rebuild a real peace out of the ruins left by
the Great War. It will already have become clear from the previous
pages that one of the principal obstacles, at present, to an Anglo-
American association for the restoration of peace in Europe is the
League itself. And that the British can get such an association for
peace at sea without reconstituting the League provided they recog-
nize and respect American objections to it in its present form. But
they cannot get such an association for peace on land without such
a radical reconstruction of the League as will remove those objections.
The fundamental American objection to the League is that it is not
a democratic institution representing the peoples of the world for the
realization of international ideals ; but that it is a diplomatic Institute
representing the principal European Powers for the realization of
264 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
their imperialist interests. Further, that this metamorphosis is
largely due to British diplomacy — that the British have assured
themselves a predominant position in the League — and that they,
in conjunction with their allies, have used their predominance for
their own purposes. Consequently, the more British League
propagandists preach the " Divine Right of the League," the more
these American Ironsides and Independents are confirmed in rebellion
against it. There is indeed no present prospect whatever of per-
suading Americans to subject themselves to the sanctions of what
the majority of them look upon as a sinister body, or even to support
a system that most of them consider mere camouflage for secret
diplomacy. There are moreover not a few British supporters of the
League who consider that this American opposition is wholesome.
For the obvious necessity for securing the adhesion to the League
of Americans and of Russians is the best guarantee that we shall get
in the near future that reorganization and revitalization of the
League that most Europeans and many English recognize to be
urgently required.
It would be outside the scope of this work to develop in detail a
reconstruction of the League and a redrafting of the Covenant
that would make possible the accession of America. It must be
enough to indicate how an Anglo-American association would render
more easy the approach of America to a reconstructed League.
Without an Anglo-American bridge across the Atlantic and with a
European League excluding the United States and the Soviet
Union the world is not organized in a Confederation of Peace, but
rather in three rival continental systems — European, American, and
Asiatic ; with a fourth, Africa, as an enfant terrible. We must
remember that the Monroe doctrine was a reaction and revolt against
the Holy Alliance — the League of a century ago : that the pan-
American and pan-Islamic movements were reactions against the
Concert of Europe — the League of a generation ago : and that the
present Soviet system, with its pan-Asiatic ramifications and the
American " Big Navy " and " War Outlawry " movements are in
reaction and in revolt against the League of to-day.
An analysis of the political problems of the present day shows
that they group themselves regionally round the four Continents.
The problems of Africa are as yet inseparable politically from those
AND THE PEACE 265
of Europe. Those of Asia are in course of swift separation ; though
such separation is retarded by the rivalry between the British Empire
and the Soviet Union. Those of America are already separated
under the hegemony of the United States. The present constitution
of the League ignores this political process. But a practical recogni-
tion of it in the constitution of the League would remove most
of the fundamental objections that are felt by Americans and
Russians. For the United States will not enter the present League
for fear of being entangled in European affairs, such as guarantees
of the present frontiers. The Soviet Union will not come in for fear
of very similar entanglements. Both Americans and Russians are
suspicious of Western and Central European intrigues and im-
perialism. Both feel that they would be in a minority and might
be put under force majeure in a League under British and French
control. Both feel that the present League's organization represents
a system which is foreign to their ideals and interests and which
they are content should continue to be so.
A REGIONAL REVISION OF THE LEAGUE
The remedy, which we need only consider as far as the United
States are concerned, though it applies in both cases, would seem to
be a further and more formal recognition of the fundamental facts
above mentioned, by a regional reconstruction of the League. We
say a further and formal recognition advisedly. Because circum-
ances have been steadily forcing the practical recognition of this
regional principle even within the confines of Europe itself. The
impossibility of getting guarantees of frontier settlements, or other
forms of security, from States geographically distant and politically
indifferent, has caused the general guarantee of Art. 10 of the
Covenant to be supplemented and even supplanted by regional
alliances. This dangerous tendency to substitute security by armed
alliances for the security of the League sanction caused an effort to
reconstruct the League more in accordance with real conditions.
Thus, Lord Cecil, in 1922, suggested to the Council that there should
be continental associations to deal with strictly continental systems.
The idea was not taken up, but reappeared in 1923 in the recom-
mendation, made in connection with disarmament, that the nations
266 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
of each geographic area should make a separate agreement for their
mutual security. It reappeared in 1924, in rather more restricted
form, in the Protocol. And finally, this regional idea is reproduced
in a still more restricted form — that brings it very far away from the
original Covenant and very near to an armed alliance — in the Locarno
Pact.
It is also the principle underlying the Four-Power Treaty as to the
Pacific, negotiated at Washington and altogether outside the
League system. We see, therefore, in this tendency towards a regional
reconstruction of the League, the road along which America may
some day reach it and revitalize it.
As things are, the League only avoids a collision with the United
States by a tacit and tactful recognition that American affairs are
outside its de facto jurisdiction, and by resigning any such issues to
the pan-American Union and its Conferences. But, on the other
hand, there are many activities of the League in which the United
States and other American peoples are as much interested as any
European people or Government. For the work of the League
easily divides itself into world-wide services, on the one hand, and
into the settlement of European affairs, on the other. In the former
activities the United States can participate. And so indispensable
is such participation in the interests of herself and of others, that she
does so participate in spite of the present prejudice against the
League. The Senate accurately expressed the American anti-
League attitude when, in ratifying the treaties with Germany and
Austria (25th August, 1921), it added a reservation —
" that the United States shall not be represented or participate in any
body, agency, or commission, nor shall any person represent the United
States as a member of any body, agency, or commission in which the
United States is authorised to participate by this Treaty unless and until
an act of Congress shall provide for such representation or participation."
This reproduces one of the reservations originally attached to the
unratified Treaty of Versailles and materially modifies Sec. 4 of Art. II
of the Treaties which provides that " while the United States is
privileged to participate M in any such Commissions or agreements,
" it is not bound to participate." The reservation was criticized by
Mr. Wickersham, an ex- Attorney General, as "an unconstitutional
AND THE PEACE 267
invasion of the Executive power by the Senate." Nevertheless the
reservation has been respected formally by the Executive.
The United States have, however, thought it necessary in the
public interest to be represented by an " Advisory Delegation " or
" Unofficial Observers " on the Permanent Advisory Committee on
opium and by delegations to the Conferences dealing with Public
Health, Relief, Traffic in Women and Children, Traffic in Arms,
Communications, Customs, and many matters of general interest.
As to the status of these delegations, and observers, Mr. Secretary
Hughes stated —
" They are unofficial simply in the sense that they are not and cannot
properly become members of the League organization. But so far as our
Government is concerned they represent it just as completely as those
designated by the President always have represented our government."
As for unofficial co-operation, American Societies, like the Society of
International Law, the Bureau of Social Hygiene, the United States
Chamber of Commerce, etc., co-operate with the League. Also
American finance subscribed five million pounds for the League's
financial reconstruction of Austria and one million, five hundred
thousand for the relief of Hungary. We have, therefore, plenty of
evidence of these two facts : that America will take no part in
League solutions of political problems in Europe, but will take part
in the League's general services to civilization. And this is consonant
with the policy of the Senate as above cited and with the point of
view of the American people as above indicated. Though it would be
advantageous perhaps to make this relationship to the League clearer
on the point of principle.
But this ambiguous acceptance of an association with the League
has not prevented Americans from pursuing their own pan- American
regulation of international issues — political — legal — and social.
We have no space to review pan-American organizations or even to
report on their position in the world. But it would seem that in
spite of lively internal rivalries and a rather meagre record of
practical results, pan-Americanism represents a real force. The list
of pan-American Conferences covering almost every common interest
of the two countries shows great activity and a certain solidarity.
Recent suggestions for developing the Washington Governing Board
268 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
of the Union into an American League of Nations show a movement
that Geneva would do well to meet half-way. President Wilson's
proposal, that afterwards became Art. 10 of the Covenant, was first
made with reference to American States only. (January 1916).
Mr. Taft thus endorsed this proposal —
" A League of Nations in the Western Hemisphere would be a definite
and a long step towards a League in both hemispheres."
It is not our province here to examine how the pan-American
Union can be developed into a regional League of Nations for the
American Continent. The recent Conference at Havana indicates
that in this the Americans have no easy task. Nor shall we here
examine how such a regional League would be brought into relations
with a reconstructed League for European affairs and a central
League organization for the whole world to which these regional
Leagues would refer. We would only suggest to Americans that
such a regional American League in relation with a central League
authority would be a fulfilment of the Monroe doctrine that would
work with less friction than a pan-American Union in which the
United States were very much the predominant partner. It would
in fact meet the desire of the United States to exercise a practical
protectorate over the American continent ; while meeting the desire
of the South American States for protection in principle by the
League. We would also suggest to our fellow countrymen that such
a regional reorganization of the League would enable us to retain,
for a time at least, our predominance in European affairs without
this excluding, as it now does, both Americans and Russians from the
League.
Both Americans and British would give up something. Americans
would give up the idea that the pan-American Union or any other
American association can be made to rival or replace the League.
The British would give up the hope of dominating the central
authority of the League with the help of the Dominion representatives
and European allies. But neither of these aspirations are sound.
The pan- American Union and the British Empire would be all the
better for not being exploited for these purposes.
In this more complex but far more complete League Federation
there will be a place for an Anglo-American armed neutrality guaran-
AND THE PEACE 269
teeing the peace and police of the seas. In our opinion this Sea League
would be so distinct, both fundamentally and functionally, from the
continental and regional Leagues above suggested, that it should
be in direct relations with the supreme and central authority of the
new League Federation of the world. Like the continental Leagues,
this Sea League would settle its own maritime and mercantile
problems, subject to its solutions being co-ordinated and controlled
by the central authority in the interests of the world as a whole.
In short, such an Anglo-American association for sea police and
self-protection, with the accession of other sea Powers, will not only
make possible an immediate rehabilitation of the international
aw of the seas, but will also make probable an eventual reorganization
of the League.
THE SUGGESTIONS SUMMARIZED
Before closing, let us briefly review the line of advance here laid
down for the two peoples — for their public authorities — and for their
pacifist movements. The successive steps are as follows —
(A) A revision of the " Root " Arbitration Treaty and of the
" Bryan ■- Conciliation Treaty which shall renounce and outlaw war
as between the two peoples and impose an obligation to arbitrate
all strictly judicial issues so far as the United States Constitution
allows. But which shall not attempt to impose arbitration on all
issues and shall rather rely on conciliation procedure as a preventive
against war.
(B) A naval disarmament agreement which shall leave to either
party the indispensable liberty of action for self -protection, subject
to financial limitations. This agreement should establish the
principle — (1) that naval armaments shall be reduced, by ratio,
to the lowest limit required for sea police — (2) that police operations,
such as blockade, bombardment, etc., be only undertaken with the
association or approval of the other parties — and (3) that the Narrow
Seas be neutralized by regional agreements. These arrangements
beingmade as general as possible by the accession of other sea Powers.
(C) A conference for the revision of international law on the
basis of the prohibition of the traffic in arms and of the subjection of
naval warfare in such extreme forms as economic blockade to general
assent.
270 COMMAND OF THE SEAS
(D) A conference for the reorganization of the League on such a
regional basis as will allow of the accession of the United States and
of the Soviet Union to a Federated League.
All these proposals follow fairly obvious lines of least resistance in
which bad mistakes are not likely once the first move is made.
But where mistakes are probable and where they would be most
fatal is in taking these moves in the wrong order. For example,
there is talk of calling a conference for the revision of international
law — the third move — before the second move — a naval disarma-
ment agreement — is finished. This would only mean another
Conference like that of the Hague that would resolve itself into
a melee of experts manoeuvring for a national advantage.
A LAST APPEAL
In conclusion, the writers wish to add that, though their arguments
are adapted to the policies of the rulers and to the points of view
of the ruling class of either party, they are addressed to the public
opinion of the two peoples. It is to the citizens who pay the taxes t
man the fleets, march in the armies, make and unmake the govern-
ments, that this appeal is submitted.
Just before the breakdown of the Geneva Conference, a leading
British statesman holding high office, said to one of the writers that
there was room in the world for two great peoples like Great Britain
and America. That is true. But the trouble is that these two peoples
have already grown so great that they will be treading on each others
toes or heels unless they can agree as to rules of the road for their
common pathway to prosperity — the Sea. It has also been said that
they are big enough to be able to differ. We would rather submit
here that they are big enough to be able to agree.
Will some future historian of their relations by land or sea — some
Bryce or Mahan of the next generation — have to record the bluffing
and blustering of two armed " gunmen " warily eyeing each other
over a poker-game, or the brotherhood of two gendarmes guarding
the peace of the world. These two peoples are great enough and
generous enough to behave to each other as gentlemen and to spare
the world the spectacle of a rivalry between their protectors and their
peace-makers that frustrates the efforts of all men of good will for
making a better world
APPENDIX
I. TREATIES
A. (i) Diplomatic History of the Rush-Bagot Agreement
THE first complaint under the Agreement came in 1838 when
the American Government called the attention of the British
Government to the presence on Lake Erie of vessels hired and
armed by the authorities of Upper Canada to prevent incursions
of persons promoting rebellion in that province. The British Government
undertook that this armament would be " discontinued at the earliest
possible period after the causes creating the danger ceased to exist."
(25th November, 1838.) In the autumn of 1839 tne United States Govern-
ment asked that this assurance be made good and, owing to rumours of
additional armaments, an appropriation for American armament was
voted but no such addition was made. . . . The United States Government
again called attention to the matter two years later (25th September, 1841)
with reference to two steamships of 500 tons, capable of carrying twenty
guns, as exceeding the limitations of the agreement, and asked for an
assurance that they be only used for the " sole purpose of guarding
H.M. provinces from hostile attack." This assurance was given (30th
November, 1841) and the incident was closed.
In 1844 the United States Government launched on Lake Erie the
Michigan of 498 tons with two 8-inch guns and four 32-pound carronnades.
The British Government asked for explanations and the United States
replied referring to British vessels of larger tonnage than that authorised
by the agreement and suggested a revision in view of changed conditions;
Nothing was done, and the larger vessels on both sides remained in use ;
the Michigan being under the Navy Department and not a revenue
cutter.
In 1864, in order to stop Confederate operations from Canadian
territory, the United States Government chartered two screw steamers
and gave the requisite six months' notice to terminate the agreement
(23rd November, 1864). But, on the collapse of the Confederate cause,
271
ZJ2 APPENDIX
they withdrew the notice (March, 1865). From the ensuing correspondence
it seems to have been accepted on both sides that the limitations should
no longer apply to revenue vessels. No naval vessels were thereafter
employed on either side. The opening of the Great Lakes to the sea
changed radically their strategical situation ; but the arrangement
nevertheless remained in force. Its revision was referred to the Joint
High Commission set up for settlement of American and Canadian
questions (30th May, 1898), but nothing resulted. The original agreement
is therefore morally in force, though materially its limitations are
liberally interpreted.
(2) Text of Agreement
The naval force to be maintained on the American Lakes by His
Majesty and the Government of the United States shall henceforth be
confined to the following vessels on each side ; that is :
On Lake Ontario to one vessel not exceeding 100 tons burden with
one 18-pound cannon.
On the Upper Lakes to two vessels not exceeding a like burden, each
armed with like force.
On the waters of Lake Champlain to one vessel not exceeding a like
burden and armed with like force.
All other armed vessels on these Lakes shall be forthwith dismantled
and no other vessels of war shall be there built or armed.
If either party should hereafter be desirous of annulling this stipulation
and should give notice to the effect to the other party it shall cease to be
binding after the expiration of six months from the date of such notice.
The naval force so to be limited shall be restricted to such services
as will in no respect interfere with the proper duties of the armed vessels
of the other party.
B. League of Nations Covenant. (Extracts)
Article 10
The Members of the League undertake to respect and preserve as
against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political
independence of all Members of the League. In case of any such
aggression or in case of any threat or danger of such aggression the
Council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be
fulfilled.
APPENDIX 273
Article 16
Should any Member of the League resort to war in disregard of its
covenants under Articles 12, 13 or 15, it shall ipso facto be deemed to
have committed an act of war against all other Members of the League,
which hereby undertake immediately to subject it to the severance of
all trade or financial relations, the prohibition of all intercourse between
their nationals and the nationals of the covenant-breaking State, and
the prevention of all financial, commercial or personal intercourse between
the nationals of the covenant-breaking State and the nationals of any
other State, whether a Member of the League or not.
It shall be the duty of the Council in such case to recommend to the
several Governments concerned what effective military, naval or air
force the Members of the League shall severally contribute to the armed
forces to be used to protect the covenants of the League.
The Members of the League agree, further, that they will mutually
support one another in the financial and economic measures which are
taken under this Article, in order to minimize the loss and inconvenience
resulting from the above measures, and that they will mutually support
one another in resisting any special measures aimed at one of their
number by the covenant-breaking State, and that they will take the
necessary steps to afford passage through their territory to the forces
of any of the Members of the League which are co-operating to protect
the covenants of the League.
Any Member of the League which has violated any covenant of the
League may be declared to be no longer a Member of the League by a
vote of the Council, concurred in by the Representatives of all the other
Members of the League represented thereon.
II. RESOLUTIONS
A. Resolution Submitted to the Senate by Senator Borah
(9th December, 1926)
Whereas war is the greatest existing menace to society and has become
so expensive and destructive that it not only causes the stupendous
burdens of taxation now afflicting our people but threatens to engulf
and destroy civilization ; and
Whereas civilization has been marked in its upward trend out of
barbarism into its present condition by the development of law and
courts to supplant methods of violence and force ; and
s
274 APPENDIX
Whereas the genius of civilization has discovered but two methods of
compelling the settlement of human disputes, namely, law and war, and
therefore, in any plan for the compulsory settlement of international
controversies, we must choose between war on the one hand and the
process of law on the other ; and
Whereas war between nations has always been and still is a lawful
institution, so that any nation may, with or without cause, declare war
against any other nation and be strictly within its legal lights ; and
Whereas revolutionary war or wars of liberation are illegal and
criminal ; to wit, high treason ; whereas under existing international
law wars between nations to settle disputes are perfectly lawful ; and
Whereas the overwhelming moral sentiment of civilized people every-
where is against the cruel and destructive institution of war ; and
Whereas all alliances, leagues, or plans which rely upon war as the
ultimate power for the enforcement of peace carry the seeds either of
their own destruction or of military dominancy to the utter subversion of
liberty and justice ; and
Whereas we must recognize the fact that resolutions or treaties out-
lawing certain methods of killing will not be effective so long as war
itself remains lawful ; and that in international relations we must have,
not rules and regulations of war but organic laws against war ; and
Whereas in our Constitutional Convention of 1787 it was successfully
contended by Madison, Hamilton, and Ellsworth that the use of force
when applied to people collectively, that is, to states or nations, was
unsound in principle and would be tantamount to a declaration or war ;
and
Whereas we have in our Federal Supreme Court a practical and
effective model for a real international court, as it has specific jurisdiction
to hear and decide controversies between our sovereign States ; and
Whereas our Supreme Court has exercised this jurisdiction without
resort to force for one hundred and thirty-seven years, during which
time scores of controversies have been judicially and peaceably settled
that might otherwise have led to war between the States, and thus
furnishes a practical exemplar for the compulsory and pacific settlement
of international controversies ; and
Whereas an international arrangement of such judicial character
would not shackle the Independence or impair the sovereignty of any
nation, and would not involve or affect the right of self-defense against
invasion or attack, such right being inherent and ineradicable, but
should not be a mere subterfuge for the traditional use of war : Now
therefore, be it
APPENDIX 275
Resolved : That it is the view of the Senate of the United States that
war between nations should be outlawed as an institution or means for
the settlement of international controversies by making it a public crime
under the law of nations and that every nation should be encouraged
by solemn agreement or treaty to bind itself to indict and punish its own
international war breeders or instigators and war profiteers under powers
similar to those conferred upon our Congress under Article I, Section 8,
of our Federal Constitution which clothes the Congress with the power
" to define and punish offenses against the law of nations " ; and be it
Resolved further : That a code of international law of peace based upon
the outlawing of war and on the principle of equality and justice between
all nations, amplified and expanded and adapted and brought down to
date should be created and adopted.
Second : That, with war outlawed, a judicial substitute for war should
be created (or, if existing in part, adapted and adjusted) in the form or
nature of an international court, modelled on our Federal Supreme Court
in its jurisdiction over controversies between our sovereign States ;
such court shall possess affirmative jurisdiction to hear and decide all
purely international controversies, as defined by the code or arising under
treaties, and its judgments shall not be enforced by war under any name
or in any form whatever, but shall have the same power for their enforce-
ment as our Federal Supreme Court, namely, the respect of all enlightened
nations for judgments resting upon open and fair investigations and
impartial decisions, the agreement of the nations to abide and be bound
by such judgments, and the compelling power of enlightened public
opinion.
B. Resolution Submitted to the Senate by Senator Capper
Whereas, the Congress of the United States on August 29th, 1916,
solemnly declared it to be " the policy of the United States to adjust and
settle its international disputes through mediation or arbitration, to the
end that war may be honourably avoided," and
Whereas, Aristide Briand, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French
Republic, on April 6th, 1927, publicly declared to the people of the
United States that " France would be willing to subscribe publicly with
the United States to any mutual engagement tending to outlaw war, to
use an American expression, as between these two countries," and
proposed that the two countries enter into an agreement providing for
the " renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy " ; and
Whereas, there has been strong expression of opinion from the people
276 APPENDIX
and the press of the United States in favour of suitable action by our
Government to give effect to the proposal of Monsieur Briand ; and
Whereas, the present arbitration treaty between the United States
and France providing for the submission to arbitration of difficulties of
a legal nature arising between them will terminate on February 27th,
1928 ; and
Whereas, the United States being desirous of securing peaceful settle-
ment of international disputes and the general renunciation of war as
an instrument of policy should not be under obligation to furnish protec-
tion for such of its nationals as aid or abet the breach of similar agreements
between other nations ; now, therefore, be it
Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled :
That it be declared to be the policy of the United States :
I. By treaty with France and other like-minded nations formally
to renounce war as an instrument of public policy and to adjust and settle
its international disputes by mediation, arbitration and conciliation ;
and
II. By formal declaration to accept the definition of aggressor nation
as one which, having agreed to submit international differences to con-
ciliation, arbitration or judicial settlement, begins hostilities without
having done so ; and
III. By treaty with France and other like-minded nations to declare
that the nationals of the contracting governments should not be protected
by their governments in giving aid and comfort to an aggressor nation
(later amended to " belligerent nation " ) ; and be it further
Resolved, that the President be requested to enter into negotiations
with France and other like-minded nations for the purpose of concluding
treaties with such nations, in furtherance of the declared policy of the
United States.
C. Resolution Introduced by Congressman Burton
To prohibit the exportation of arms, munitions, or implements of war to
certain foreign countries.
Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress Assembled :
That it is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States to
prohibit the exportation of arms, munitions or implements of war to any
APPENDIX 277
country which engages in aggressive warfare against any other country
in violation of a treaty, convention, or other agreement to resort to
arbitration or other peaceful means for the settlement of international
controversies.
Sec. 2. Whenever the President determines that any country has
violated any such treaty, convention, or agreement by engaging in
aggressive warfare against any other country, and makes proclamation
thereof, it shall be unlawful, until otherwise proclaimed by the President,
or provided by act of Congress, to export any arms, munitions or
implements of war from any place in the United States or any possession
thereof to such country, or to any other country if the ultimate destination
of such arms, munitions, or implements of war is the country so violating
any such treaty, convention or agreement.
Sec. 3. Whoever exports any arms, munitions, or implements of war
in violation of Section 2 of this Resolution, shall, upon conviction thereof,
be punished by a fine not exceeding $10,000, or by imprisonment not
exceeding two years, or both. It shall be the duty of the Secretary of
the Treasury to report any violation of Section 2 of this Resolution to
the United States District Attorney for the district wherein the violation
is alleged to have been committed.
D. Resolution adopted by the Labour Party Annual
Conference at Blackpool, October, 1927.
" The Conference calls upon the Government to reopen negotiations
with the United States with a view to the settlement of all outstanding
political questions between them, including the question of the control
of the sea in time of war, the conclusion of a treaty outlawing war between
the two peoples, and a drastic reduction of naval armaments."
INDEX
Aaland Islands, 157, 224
Admiralty, formation of Plans
Division, 95
Aeroplane, menace against mer-
chant ships, 108, 109, no, 112,
116, 117, 120, 173, 188
Aeroplanes, destruction of war-
ships by, 115, 116
Aggression, wars of, 52, 240, 259
Air Power, importance of, 114,
ii5, 117
Alabama, 48
American Civil War, 45, 47
American-Spanish War, 48
Anglo-American co-operation dur-
ing war, effects of, 95, 96, 97
Anglo-American War of 1812, its
causes, 36, 37 ; its conclusion,
38
Anglo- Japanese Alliance, 156,
157, 158
Anti- Aircraft Gunnery, 113
Arbitration, Anglo-American
Treaty of, 257, 258, 259, 261
Armed Neutrality, Anglo-
American, 31, 31, 41, 55, 61,
III, 187, 213, 220, 228, 245,
248, 250, 268 ; first, 21 ; second,
3*i 32, 35 ; in future, 30 ;
American, in Great War, 69
Armistice Terms, Freedom of
Seas deleted, 140, 141
B
Bahamas, 252
Bainville, Jacques, 254
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley, 164,
165, 169, 170, 195
Balfour, Lord, 154, 155, 158, 177,
179, 184, 195
Barbary Pirates, 38
Beatty, Admiral Lord, 154, 158
Benson, Rear-Admiral W. S., 143,
145
Berlin Decree, 35
Blockade, close, difficulties of, 63,
127 ; modern, 67, 68, 70, 77,
117, 122, 125, 126, 235, 237, 238
Borah, Senator, 153, 233, 253, 273
Briand, M., 158, 159, 259
Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. W., 168,
169, 170, 173, 174, 181, 186
Bristol, Admiral, 226
Bryan Conciliation Treaties, 250,
259, 269
Bryce, Lord, 136, 270
Burton Congressman, 276
California, U.S.S., poison gas
practice, 112
Canada, influence at Washington
of, 196, 206
Capper, Senator, 240, 275, 276
279
28o
INDEX
Cecil of Chelwood, Lord, 170, 177,
179, 182, 256, 265
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Sir
Austen, 169, 179, 195, 197, 218,
256, 257
Childers, Erskine, 100
Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston, 17,
73, 165, 178, 179, 182, 220
Clemenceau, Monsieur, 184
Commerce destruction in former
wars, 102, 103, 104 ; pro-
tection under modern condi-
tions, 106, 107, 108
Contraband of war, 59, 60, 61, 71,
128, 234, 236
Coolidge, President, 166, 167, 171,
173, 183, 193
Cruiser Building Programme of
Naval Powers, 165, 194, 198
Cruisers, armament of, discussed
at Geneva, 176, 177, 181, 183 ;
British demand for, 163, 164,
165, 173, 174 ; British pro-
posals at Geneva, 172 ; offen-
sive and defensive classes, 175
Cushenden, Lord, 172
Debts, War, American policy
towards, 150, 151, 207
Declaration of London, 62, 64, 68,
132, 136
Deciphering Organization, 79, 80
Declaration of Paris, 44, 45, 124,
128, 129, 130, 136
Decoding Organization, 79, 80
Denmark, shipping losses in
Great War, 87
Disarmament, Russian proposals,
189, 225 ; Preparatory Com-
mission, 167, 172
Dogger Bank Fishing Fleet,
attacked by Baltic Fleet, 55
Emden, 104, 106, 121
Fisher, Admiral of the Fleet, Lord,
98, 100
Fortescue, Sir John, 182
Franz Fischer, first merchant ship
sunk by aircraft, 109
French Congressmen, 192
Geneva Naval Conference, 1927,
22, 146, 165, 167, 168, 169, 170,
171, 173, 174, 177, 178, 181, 183,
184, 186, 188, 189, 190, 192, 195,
215, 222, 270
Geneva Protocol, 250
Gibson, Mr., 173
Gladstone, Mr. W. E., and Franco-
Prussian War, 52
Grey, Sir Edward, 135, 136, 137
Groves, General, C.B., C.M.G., 6,
112
H
Hague Peace Conference, 1907, 56,
57, 58, 61, 65, 69, 132, 222
Haldane, Viscount, 124
Harding, President, 149, 150, 152,
153, 158, 160, 163
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, 17
House, Colonel, 73, 135, 136,
137
Hughes, Secretary, 149, 153, 201,
267
INDEX
281
Imperial Defence, Committee of,
124, 179
Italy, attitude to Geneva Con-
ference, 168 ; proposals for
limiting Air Force, 187
Japan, attitude at Geneva, 172,
*73y x79 I difficulty of blockad-
ing, 127
Jellicoe, Admiral Lord, 170
Jones, Admiral, 174
Jones, Paul, 30, 31
K
Kato, Admiral, 154, 179
Kellogg, Mr. Secretary, 184, 186,
258, 259
Kenworthy, Commander, record
of, 7
Kim, 1915, 46, 47
Knight Commander, case of, 54
Labour Government in Britain,
attitude of, 164, 189, 211, 218,
219, 251
Labour Government in Britain
and Locarno Conference, 169
La Follette, Senator, 141
Lansing-Ishii Agreement, 156
League of Nations, 26, 42, 124,
125, 133, 134, 137, I39» 142,
143, 144, 146, 148, 149, 151,
158, 160, 167, 189, 197, 212,
213, 252, 253, 255, 260, 263,
264, 265, 266, 267, 272, 273
Lee, Lord, 52, 158, 214, 215
Lichnowsky, Prince, 204
Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. D., 17, 93,
94. 195. 254
Locarno, Pact of, 42, 158, 253,
254, 266 ; Conference, 169
Lodge, Senator, 141, 153, 231
London, Declaration of, 62, 64,
68, 71, 132, 136
Lusitania, 72, 76, 144
If
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R., 164,
195, 256
Mahan, Admiral, 24, 67, 78, 270
Maine, U.S.S., 49
Maritime Convention (1801-1807),
35
Monroe Doctrine, 34, 48, 49, 50,
82, 139, 142, 196, 205, 206, 209,
216, 241, 253, 260, 268
Munitions of war, private trade in,
235> 236
Murray, Professor Gilbert, 139
Mutsu, 155, 166
N
Navy League, 168, 171, 191
Nelson, H.M.S., 155, 166, 174
Newberry, Senator, 141
Norris, Senator, 148
Norway, shipping losses, Great
War, 87
O
Oleron, laws of, 18
Outlawry of war, 208, 209, 221,
231, 232, 233, 235, 238, 239,
241, 248, 253, 258, 263, 273,
274, 275
282
INDEX
Papacy and Freedom of Seas, 20,
21, 26, 132
Paris, Declaration of, 44, 45, 124,
128, 129, 130, 136
Patrick, Major-General Mason,
115, 187
Pauncefote, Lord, 50, 51, 57
Persia and Freedom of Air, 24
Piracy, menace of, 18, 19
Pius, Emperor Antoninus, 18
Plans Division, formation of, 95
Poison gas from aeroplanes, 112
Ponsonby, Arthur, 165
Privateering, 63, 186
Prize Court Bill, 64
Prizes of war, destruction of, 62,
85
Protocol, Geneva, 250, 257
R
Reprisals order in Council, 73, 127,
128
Restormel, s.s., 53
Rodney, H.M.S., 155, 166, 174
Roosevelt, President, 57, 230
Root, Mr., 57, 58, 153
Root Arbitration Treaty (1908),
258, 262
Rush-Bagot Agreement, 17, 40,
41, 42, 43, 213, 222, 223, 271,
272
Russo-Japanese War, 54, 86
Russia, disarmament proposals,
189, 225
Saito, Viscount, 170
Scheer, Admiral von, 185
Sea Power, only tolerated as sea
police, 16 ; in Trojan War, 16
Seeley, Major-General, 111
Senate, position of in U.S.A., 228,
230, 260
Seven Years' War, 152
Singapore, naval base, 161
Spain, shipping losses in Great
War, 86
Spee, Count von, 104, 105
Strategy, naval, effect of new
weapons on, 102, 103, 104, 105,
106, 107, 108, 109, no, 117, 118,
119
Submarines, world-building pro-
grammes of, 108
Submarine Campaign, 72, 83, 85 ;
results, 89, 90, 119
Submarines, prohibition of, 184,
185, 186, 187 ; German losses
in Great War, 99 ; British pro-
posals at Geneva, 172
Sussex, s.s., y^, 75
Sweden, shipping losses in Great
War, 88
Taft, ex-President, 230, 268
Thompson, General Rt. Hon.
Lord, no
Trojan War, 16
Tyrell, Sir William, 136
U
United States Naval Advisory
Staff, 143
Versailles, Treaty of, 42, 183, 188,
232, 250
INDEX
283
W
Washington Naval Conference,
1921, 22, 41, 106, 107, 123, 153,
154, 156, 158, 159, 160, 162,
163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168,
171, 172, 175, 176, 177, 178,
179, 183, 184, 186, 187, 197,
224
Weapons, alteration in, effects on
strategy, 102, 103, 104, 105,
106, 107, 108, 109, no, 117,
118, 119
Wemyss, Admiral Lord Wester,
124, 125, 129
Wilbur, Mr., 192
Wilson, Field-Marshal Sir Henry,
94, 140, 197
Wilson, President Woodrow, 17,
34, 78, 91, 135, 137, 138, 139,
140, 141, 142, 143, 145, 148,
150, 152, 153, 158, 160, 165,
228, 230
Wolf, German cruiser, 105, 106,
121
Young, George, record of, 8
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